Posted 09.01.2009

Power glide: Bill Ritter has bet his future on the new energy economy

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The Governor’s Energy Office list puts the investment of Vestas Blades alone at $700 million, so investment in clean energy in Colorado is indisputably in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The major point Pew made about Colorado was that clean-tech jobs had grown 18.2 percent over the study period compared with an 8.2 percent growth rate for all jobs in Colorado over the same time frame. The study period, however, does not account for close to 150,000 overall job losses in Colorado since the economic downturn started here in late 2007.

Pike Research in Boulder, Clint Wheelock’s firm, provides clean-tech industry market analysis across the board, from algae-based biofuel to wind energy. Wheelock says it is still “very early in terms of gauging results” of the governor’s effort to build a new energy economy in Colorado because too many of the companies and initiatives are in embryonic stages of development.

He rates Colorado among the top states or cities where clean tech is growing, along with California in its Silicon Valley; Boston; Seattle/Portland; and Austin, Texas.
Wheelock appreciates Ritter’s efforts to create an industry cluster in the state, but he says real, quantitative results of those efforts might become more obvious during a second term rather than now during the governor’s re-election bid.

“He could probably rattle off eight to 10 things that he’s done, initiatives that he’s encouraged, that are pretty good proof points,” Wheelock said. “Whether, given the business community’s ambivalence about him, from what I read in the newspapers, whether that’s enough to make a difference (in a re-election bid), I don’t know.

“My take is that he seems to have done a significantly better than average job in terms of promoting the clean energy agenda, and I’m glad we have a governor who is curious about the sector and seems passionate about it.”

Ritter got a taste of what the GOP might have in store for him as he tries to ride the new energy economy to a second term when he testified before Congress over the summer.
“I’m just really kind of wondering why you are here,” Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe told Ritter during a congressional hearing July 21 on the pending Waxman-Markey climate-change bill in Washington, D. C.

 When Ritter got a chance to answer — after a long-winded speech by Inhofe — Colorado’s governor sat up aggressively in his chair and said, “I’m here by invitation, so that’s why I’m here.”

The exchange, preserved on You Tube, showed Republican attacks against Ritter’s energy policies are already well under way.

Inhofe didn’t let the governor respond to his first assertion before launching into his own anti-Waxman speech.

“According to the EIA, the Energy Information Agency, Colorado’s oil-shale deposits hold an estimated 1 trillion barrels of oil, nearly as much oil as the entire world’s proven reserves. Over the long term, that could equate to hundreds of billions in economic development to Colorado,” the senator said. “Few would disagree that the passage of Waxman-Markey would effectively kill any future oil-shale production in Colorado. That’s a huge thing for the state of Colorado. I mean, that’s the biggest single economic blow that you could have in my opinion.”

Inhofe also cited a study by the Food and Agriculture Policy Research Institute stating that a typical, 1,900-acre feed-grain farm would face $11,649 in higher energy costs by 2020, $30,000 by 2050 and asked Ritter if he was supporting the Waxman-Markey bill.

When Ritter finally had a chance to speak after another Inhofe interruption, his answer was measured.

“I support a national energy policy that’s married to a national climate policy that gets at these goals that we have for greenhouse gas reductions,” Ritter said. “And I believe that, if you do that, there will be some vehicle that may not look exactly like Waxman-Markey, particularly after the Senate finishes its work. But I very much support climate legislation that is joined with a national energy policy that gets us to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals that are set for 2050.”

The Senate exchange reverberated through the media, provoking at least three news stories in The Denver Post and reports in new media outlets, and causing the governor to remark on the ambush during the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association launch event two days later in the Governor’s Mansion.

“I was treated a little bit roughly,” Ritter told about 125 representatives of the industry.

CCIA was started in January and had already recruited 90 members by its coming-out party in July. The event was a strong showing of business support for Ritter’s clean-energy performance, but it was a showing that was limited to the industry that benefits the most from his promotion of a new energy economy.

“Do you think you are winning any business support from doing this?” the governor was asked about the new energy economy during the short interview with ColoradoBiz in the sunny foyer of the Seawell Ballroom.

“We absolutely are winning business support,” Ritter said. “There are all kinds of individuals who have come to understand the power of a clean energy industry, the way you can create jobs.”

Janice Sinden, executive director of Colorado Concern, the group of corporate CEOs that backed Ritter in 2006, said her organization is still far away from supporting a candidate for governor in 2010, especially since the Republican nominee has not yet been chosen.

 Which means the incumbent governor’s claim to business support is still in play.

Much like the claims he makes for Colorado’s achieving a new energy economy.

Robert Schwab, a former editor of ColoradoBiz, is writing a blog on small business, politics and minority business issues. Read "Schwab on Anything" at http://robertschwabpoet.blogspot.com/.

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