On Saturday, July 25, about 137,000 people in portions of ten counties, including my Castle Rock District, received a letter in the mail from their electricity provider, the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), lambasting the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, more commonly known as the Waxman-Markey Bill. This bill was recently passed by a bipartisan majority in the US House of Representatives and will be considered shortly in the US Senate. I have already received feedback from recipients of the letter, who were either laughing that anyone would send such rubbish, or angry that they belong to a co-op that is so shortsighted and misleading.

IREA has been around for a long time, their general manager has been with them for a long time, and they have pretty much been able to do whatever they wanted to for a long time without any oversight by the Public Utilities Commission, because they are a co-op. In fact, they are the largest electric co-op in Colorado. They are supposed to be accountable to us, the co-op members, who use the electric power they provide. IREA is known for: not believing in climate change, not believing in using alternative energy, and not believing in changing from doing business as usual with good ol' coal, except when forced. They don't believe in sitting down with Governor Ritter to join in the energy roundtable discussions, so 137,000 of us are left without a voice in Colorado's New Energy Economy, which is already providing new green jobs all over the state. They don't encourage energy efficiency, and they don't encourage you to know anything about their board's decisions or their elections. They do send a rebate check once a year to show you how wonderful they are, and they do tell you often how cheaply they provide you that reliable coal fueled energy.

In the letter, IREA predicts that if the Waxman-Markey bill is passed, then all hell will break loose, our economy will crumble and "millions" of jobs will go overseas. They go on to intimate that using wind and solar power will cause our lights to go out, and then finally say, hey, what are we worried about, it's not CO2 emissions, but sun spots, that are causing changes in the weather, but actually, the temperature is dropping! I kid you not! But maybe this is what we should expect from a company that gave a six figure sum a few years ago to an anti global warming organization, our co-op members' money, and is now spending more of our money to send us a partisan political piece of propaganda. They are so out of step with the industry that even their own National Rural Electric Association is not opposed to this bill.

I am a Democrat, but I do not automatically support everything that Democrats in Washington, DC and locally do. I am also a former oil and gas landman, and so I also understand where fossil fuels people are coming from. But this issue goes way beyond either politics or business. Passage in the House was a huge accomplishment towards having a comprehensive energy plan that is: good for the economy by providing investments in energy efficiency and creating green jobs, good for the environment by setting up a system to counteract CO2 and other emissions, as well as encourage clean energy alternatives like wind and solar power, and good for national security, by decreasing our dependence on foreign oil in a responsible manner. It is probably as important a bill to pass as the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act were, if not more so. The Congressional Budget office estimate of a postage stamp a day cost to a family is quite a bit more likely than IREA's $5000 and above citing, with significant savings as opposed to costs to families within a few years. The cost of doing nothing, not counting the huge subsidies to the coal, oil and gas and nuclear industries, would be disastrous to our economy, to say nothing of the environmental cost. China, who IREA mentions as not reducing their CO2 output, is no star in the world of environmental policy, but is massively overspending us in terms of investing in green energy alternatives.

So are the lights going out if we pass the bill? No one is flipping the switch tomorrow, or ever, to 100% wind energy, so no, the lights will not go out! This kind of scare tactic is beneath anyone.

And as to global warming, I hardly need to say that there is a huge consensus among scientists all over the world that global warming does exist, and that it poses a significant threat to life as we know it by creating negative changes an alarming rate. Denying this is as ludicrous as denying the existence of the Holocaust.

The sad bottom line is that IREA does not believe that this bill will help them sell their power, so they are against it. But the writing is on the wall. Will our co op continue to live in the 18 th century, and continue to kick and scream as it is pulled in the 21 st century? If so, then all of us will be penalized by their backwards behavior as they are made to tow the line on carbon constraints.

Seven committees in the Senate will take up the Waxman-Markey bill on September 8, including Senator Udall's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Senator Bennet's Agriculture Committee. I would urge you to call them, not as IREA would have you do, to defeat the bill, but to support it as the key to a smart energy future. Write letters to the editor too, and to IREA, and talk to your friends. And do keep an eye on what your co-op is up to, especially when it comes time to vote on their board members, and take a stand. It does not have to be business as usual anymore.