Customer of Black Hills Energy? Let them hear you on price increases! Southwest Energy Efficiency Project is a lobbyist, not a neutral source. Armstrong's quasi-review of LaRue's book
Are you a customer of Black Hills energy? Know someone who is?
Right now the PUC is doing hearings on whether or not Black Hills can raise your (or their) electric bill. By a lot.
If you're a customer, speak up for your wallet!
There is some color commentary in the Sun article below, but there's really only two important things here.
First, the following quote with an advocate advising how to address the PUC with public comment:
“'The commissioners understand the public isn’t used to doing this,' he [Joseph Pereira, deputy director of the Consumer Advocate office--the body that, in theory, speaks for us at PUC hearings] continued as he offered an outline on how to comment. The tips included: use notes, speak naturally, say how a rate increase would impact you and tell them what you want them to do."
Second, the attached screenshot with details on when and how to sign up.
Because you can't click on links in a picture, I put the link to the PUC site where you can sign up to comment (or send emails) second below.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/12/02/people-in-south-central-colorado-are-putting-up-a-big-fight-against-a-proposed-electric-rate-increase/
https://puc.colorado.gov/comments
The people at Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP) are lobbyists, but some journalists don’t treat them as such.
They might be lobbyists for environmentalists (and others--see below), but they're lobbyists. This is rarely reflected in the articles where they're quoted. See for example the articles in the SWEEP archives at the Colorado Sun linked first below.
To get a sense I went into the first and fourth articles in the Sun's archives and called up all the instances where SWEEP appears. Those excerpts are gathered in the screenshots labeled 1st and 4th attached.
They are listed as being an "environmental group" in the fourth article, but not in the first. In others they are variously called a "nonprofit" or "helpful" (largely the last two by the Sun's in house environmental activist Michael Booth), but I did not see them characterized by the words "lobbyist".
This, despite the fact that it's what the company acknowledges in their financials (that webpage linked second below). They spend pretty significant amounts on lobbying in fact. See the screenshots taken from their 2022 and 2023 tax filings found at that link.
A special note on the 2022 screenshot. It's highlighted in blue. When you see "grassroots" as a lobbying expense what this means is that they spent that money convincing people to get politically involved. For example, they may have used that money to help encourage people to say the things SWEEP wants said at committee hearings, etc.
They are also not listed as a lobbyist in publications like the Sun despite the fact that (per an email exchange I had with Ms. Frysinger at SWEEP), they will not reveal what foundations support their efforts, and despite the fact that their corporate "allies" have a whole lot to gain by government efficiency and electrification mandates (see the attached screenshot labeled "Ally").
Being a lobbyist doesn't on its own negate their work. It doesn't automatically make them wrong.
But when you see them quoted in an article the best category to put them in would be "lobbyist". I want you to think of them as the environmentalist (and green business) equivalent of the American Petroleum Institute.
They're a trade group, not a disinterested, neutral group who doesn't have a dog in the fight. They got several.
One last thing from the "Swamp" files. Their executive director, Elise Jones, earns quite a salary. She was, not surprisingly, a former Boulder County Commissioner. She's also donated a fair bit to lefty causes.
Good to see the well-worn path of politics to lobbying is alive and well.
https://coloradosun.com/tag/southwest-energy-efficiency-project/
https://www.swenergy.org/financials/
Related:
SWEEP was in 9News too, not labeled for what they are, because they participated in the PUC hearings on re. Xcel's EV rebates.
Turns out those EV's sell like hotcakes. All the more when subsidized by taxpayers and Xcel's customers.
And then we come to the sad faces when the money runs out.
https://www.9news.com/article/money/consumer/xcel-ev-rebate-program/73-b72bf9c0-6d7d-492d-ad02-a7d3aecae507
Armstrong's quasi-review of LaRue's book
The first link below was an interesting look at (review of?) Garfield Librarian James LaRue's book "On Censorship: A Public Librarian Examines Cancel Culture in the US" by Ari Armstrong.
Like many of Mr. Armstrong's efforts, I don't always find myself agreeing (this is also the case for me and Mr. LaRue, see the second link below for an earlier post), but I do often find his Armstrong's take interesting.
Presented in the spirit of spurring thought.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/11/19/armstrong-colorado-librarian-book-bans/
https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/toning-down-the-rhetoric-on-library?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web