The Gazette first reported in April that a proposed, multibillion-dollar state mandate to cut energy use at thousands of Colorado buildings, including many offices and apartments, has drawn an outcry from affected property owners. Among the many concerns they raised was the unprecedented speed with which the state government wanted to proceed toward implementation – making it all but impossible for stakeholders to have input in the process.

On Thursday, The Gazette reported those property owners have been granted a little more time – including a new public hearing date in August to make their case before the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission- but it’s not much of a reprieve. The process is still rushed. It remains, as we pointed out here in April, an agenda that is being pushed at a breakneck pace.

It is in fact a reckless pace, considering the state seeks nothing less than to re-engineer Colorado’s commercial buildings – mandating a dizzying array of vague, cost-prohibitive and ultimately unworkable green-energy regulations. One upshot would be the forced – and controversial – “electrification” of buildings to wean them from natural gas. That’s regardless of an inadequate electrical grid to handle the extra power load that would result, as well as the lack of technology to feasibly heat buildings on electricity alone in Colorado’s winters.

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The proposed rule was the result of legislation signed into law two years ago by Gov. Jared Polis as part of his Greenhouse Gas Reduction Roadmap. It applies to more than 8,000 buildings in the state with more than 50,000 square feet of floor space and requires reductions in energy use of 7% by 2026 and 20% by 2030 – below 2021 levels. The Air Quality Control Commission is charged with imposing the rule and conducting the hearings to field challenges.

Among other concerns raised is the pending mandate essentially seeks to set new efficiency standards for consumer appliances already subject to federal regulation. It would amount to setting an unlawful efficiency standard – zero emissions – for existing gas appliances under the U.S. Energy Policy and Conservation Act and would force the removal of those appliances. It’s worth noting a federal court ruled in April that a Berkeley, Calif., ordinance banning the connection of natural gas lines to new construction violated that same federal law.

Critics also charge the commission’s latest reiteration of the rule that will be on the table in the August hearing includes even more stringent provisions.

Two associations representing apartment owners have been leading the resistance to the new rule. Some of the other concerns they’ve raised include that the state has failed to evaluate the adverse impacts the rule will have on citizens and businesses in Colorado; has vastly understated the costs; has overstated savings benefits, and has not based its evaluation on facts and conditions unique to Colorado.

So, here’s the question we raised in April and ask again now: Why the rush?

If a key sector of Colorado’s economy must radically reinvent some of its infrastructure at budget-busting expense – which ultimately will be borne by the whole economy – the entire process needs to slow down.

At the least, the state should be working together with stakeholders to nail down exactly what the toll will be and whether changes need to be made to the rule’s specific mandates as well as to the timeline for implementing them.

Better still, the legislature and governor might want to consider whether the whole undertaking is worth it in the first place.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board