Colorado House Forms Renewable Energy Committee

 

February 9, 2006

The Select Committee will be made up five members of State House of Representatives. The House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder will chair the committee with Rep. Judy Solano, D-Brighton, and Rep. Rafael Gallegos, D- San Luis Valley, also sitting on the Committee. The House Minority Leader Joe Stengel, R- Littleton, will be able to appoint two Republican lawmakers to the committee.

The Colorado House Select Committee on Strategic Renewable Energy will listen, learn and discuss the various issues surrounding sustainable and alternative energy resources that the state of Colorado may potentially access and utilize.

The Committee will also evaluate the benefit and impacts of utilizing and promoting these resources in the marketplace and in our communities. Colorado has tremendous competitive advantage in its huge and inexhaustible renewable energy resources and the unprecedented opportunity to embrace these new local economic development opportunities throughout the state, including rural communities.

Some of the issues the Renewable Energy Select Committee to be addressed in their study would include next generation of biofuels and alternative fuels; tapping and integrating rural Colorado's renewable energy resources into the marketplace; and re-using farm waste as energy, biomass and biodigesting at local schools.

"We owe it to the hard-working people of Colorado to do everything we can do to promote affordable and dependable sources of renewable energy. It is good for the pocketbook, the economy and the planet: I call that a win-win-win," said Majority Leader Alice Madden, chair of the select committee.