Jared Polis’ charm offensive continues outside Colorado. National media continues to fall for a Potemkin Polis that is libertarian, pro-business and anti-tax.
The normally sober Wall Street Journal editorial page recently proclaimed, “Jared Polis bucks the climate lobby,” and lauded his bravery for vetoing one single bill to mandate new parking lots have electric-vehicle charging stations.
One can only assume that Jared’s family friend and member of Jared’s corporate board of directors, economist Art Laffer, had a hand in selling this fairy tail.
Laffer, beloved by we fiscal conservatives for promoting low, flat tax rates, is a WSJ favorite and Polis’ greatest apologist. His adulation would be a bit more believable if he first disclosed his financial entanglements with the Polis family.
Those of us here in Colorado know that Polis doesn’t buck the climate lobby.
Jared Polis is the climate lobby.
Just days before his bravery in vetoing the EV-charging stations in parking lots bill, he signed House Bill 1362, a complete capitulation to social-engineering environmentalists. Ripping control away from local governments, it forces electrification mandates on new building.
Whether or not a homeowner wants it, he or she must pay to wire his or her home for EV-charging stations (like Polis just vetoed for parking lots, hmm), solar panels and the like. Builders predict this will add tens of thousands of dollars to the already insane price of a Colorado home. Way to buck the climate lobby.
Colorado is, and has basically always been, out of Environmental Protection Agency-compliance for ozone.
It’s one of the benefits of being at such high altitude and smoke from Californian forest fires floating our way.
That’s why every governor of Colorado signs a letter asking the EPA for a waiver, and why every time they grant it.
But that pillar of strength against the climate lobby, Mr. Polis, will be the first governor not to ask for the waiver. The likely result is the EPA will require Coloradans to use a boutique mixture of fuel that will have to be created especially for us at a cost of up to a dollar more a gallon.
Let’s speed right by Senate Bill 181, which is the strangle-knot around the neck of Colorado’s once thriving oil-and-gas industry.
Let’s coast right past the crazies he has appointed to the powerful energy commission, the Public Utilities Commission, and the air-quality commission.
Let’s slide right by his decision to tie Colorado to the eco-whims of Gavin Newsom’s California vehicle-emissions standards and get to the most pressing issue of our inflation-ravaged time — environmental justice.
Our slayer of the climate lobby signed House Bill 21-1266 to “redress the effects of environmental injustice on disproportionately impacted communities,” and created the “environmental justice action task force” to figure out how to redress the inequities.
What da?
Which communities? Well, the first qualifier according to the new law is “low-income” communities.
So, um, how to state the plainly obvious? The community most in need of “environmental justice” are those victimized by Polis’ environmental and energy laws, policies and appointees.
Colorado’s working poor are taking it on the chin for Polis’ near total surrender to financially unsustainable environmental madness.
Who can handle $5-a-gallon gas the least?
Who can swallow utility bill hikes the least?
Whose formerly high-paying jobs in coal, oil and gas have now disappeared, plunging them into poverty?
Who can no longer afford a car now that Colorado cars and trucks must meet California climate standards?
And yes, most low-income families are people of color and indigenous people.
Is this pandering law simply a way to rid the state of energy facilities like the Suncor oil refinery in Commerce City? This, the only refinery in the state, was built before most people moved in around it.
Curious, when the EPA commands Colorado drivers and truckers buy a new unique blend of gasoline for the sins of our ozone violations, where do the enviros think it will be produced?
You can have a say in this revulsion. Jared’s Environmental Justice Action Task Force is taking public input on their special marriage of environmental alarmism and victim celebration.
Go here to let them know what you think. What you submit becomes public record and has an impact.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
