Highlights from the Legislature on Wednesday.
— The Senate gave initial backing to House Bill 1203, introduced in response to the controversial sale of two nonsectarian hospitals in the Denver area to a Catholic hospital group. The bill wouldn’t affect that sale but in future sales the attorney general would have to consider whether health care services would be reduced before approving them. Proponents of abortion rights and birth control have sued to block the sale as well as people concerned that Catholic guidelines would require people in vegetative states to be kept alive.
— The Senate State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee killed House Bill 1107, which would have required rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities to spend 2 percent of their revenue on energy efficiency programs for their customers. Lawmakers passed a bill last year requiring larger, investor-owned utilities to spend the same amount on energy efficiency.
— Gov. Bill Ritter signed House Bill 1190, which allows customers of rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities to get credit for the wind and solar power they generate at home.
