Sen Fenberg once again shows how little he values citizen input. HB21-1105 fees to CEO, where are they going? EOC's financials: where is the money going?
Well, that was quick
Bill is up on the Assembly website on the 22nd. It’s out of committee on the 24th/ I don’t know that I ever saw notice that it was in committee.
Completely in keeping with what I’ve seen of Sen Fenberg’s style thus far. Look at his SB157.
Debate and consideration of policy are clearly not a goal here. The ability of everyday citizens to weigh in and have their say in a committee hearing is also clearly not a priority.
How are people with jobs and families supposed to get involved when things move this quickly?
I put a link to the bill itself and to my State Senator’s FB page below where he does an explainer on this bill.
As I wrote just yesterday (see what I mean about the bill advancing quickly?) this is a state takeover of local land-use decisions.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-212
https://www.facebook.com/ColoSenGOP/videos/3862007930679864/
Energy Assistance System Charge: a charge on your utility bills thanks to HB21-1105
I copied over the link from an earlier Energy Outreach Colorado post for convenience's sake. If you go in and look carefully you’ll note a new line item in the 2023 (and 2024) financials. Something not in the earlier lists.
What is it? Yet another fee charged to you thanks to HB21-1105. I linked to that bill second below and attached the quick summary from the bill's fiscal note as a screenshot.
As I say in the post right below this one, clearly our legislators think the solution to high energy prices is not to examine the economics at hand. It's not to revisit policy that might be driving prices for energy up.
It's to help those which this policy hammers on by taking more from everyone else to fill in the hole.
And where does this money go? According to one of the emails I got in corresponding with Energy Outreach Colorado's press people, it is what the "... EOC transfers to the Colorado Energy Office for their Weatherization Assistance Programs which primarily serves residential households. This legislation also dramatically increased EOC’s cash assistance program and education grants from 2022 and 2023."
That is, some of the money from this state-mandated fee on your energy bill goes to help those that need energy assistance and some goes to the Colorado Energy Office.
What happens to it then?
If you go to the first link below and click on either or both of the files labeled "HB21_1105Reporting" (see screenshot 2) you'll see the mandated report on what the Colorado Energy Office is doing with your money.
Screenshots 3, 4, and 5 come from the 2024 report and give a graph of money disbursement by category for the whole state, which groups the Colorado Energy Office gives grant money to in order to spend, and then a table which breaks down how those groups spent their money respectively.
Clearly Northwest Council of Governments and the Energy Resource Council are going big on electrification while Arapahoe County and Housing Resources of Western Colorado are going big on rooftop solar.
Good for them. I'm glad to be contributing to that effort. Nothing makes me feel quite so good as taking money out of my family budget so that so Arapahoe County residents can have rooftop solar or folks out in Northwest CO can have a heat pump.
I'm not a huge fan of government taking my money to give to others, but if we're going to do it, I'd much rather have all of it going to help people pay heating bills instead of breaking off chunks so that others can have solar panels or electrify.
If people want to fund that themselves, fine. If they can't and others want to voluntarily donate, fine. Taking from me or my family and forcing me to subsidize such things is not okay.
documentId=E4975EC7CE82B18F872572BC0065C253
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb21-1105
Energy Outreach Colorado's financials: where is the money going?
This will be the final post on Energy Outreach Colorado. I want to wrap with a look at where the money is going and how it's changed over the years.
As before, the link below is to the report that the Colorado Energy Office is required to prepare and submit to the legislature (among others).
I think the best way to get an overview of where the money coming into the EOC is going is to look into the expense ledger of the yearly audits. The screenshots labeled 2019 through 2023 are those expense ledgers from the respective audits.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, it's quite clear that the need for energy assistance has gone up dramatically over the last four years--a 48% increase in total outlays from 2019 to 2023.
A natural followup question to seeing these audit categories is to ask what they each mean. I asked and the email response I got is in the screenshots labeled 1 and 2.
A couple quick notes:
--For clarity's sake, NEEP is a program where they offer energy efficiency upgrades to non profits like food banks and etc. Most nonprofits are poor as church mice and thus upgrades financed by NEEP money can help them lower their energy bills.
--Also, for clarity's sake, it should be noted that none of these assistance programs involve giving money directly to anyone. The assistance goes directly to the vendors (so, it would go to Xcel or maybe a furnace company if you needed help repairing your broken furnace in winter).
If there is one thing that has stuck out to me about looking at what Energy Outreach Colorado is doing it's this: the huge jumps in energy prices in this state are hammering low-income Coloradans hard.
Partly this is a result of economic factors, but it is also partly due to policy choices.
I wonder how many of those policy choices are made knowing that high energy prices hit those with lower and fixed incomes hardest (people of means are always insulated against high prices--they have resources enough to pay for whatever policy we institute).
I wonder how many of those policy choices take into account the fact that energy in one form or another is a precursor in nearly every product we buy and thus rising energy prices make EVERYTHING more expensive.
From what I'm seeing, and this is how things look to me, it sure seems like the plan is to go ahead with policy that will drive energy costs up and then lean on everyone else to help support those whose incomes cannot meet the higher prices.