A bill reorganizing how the state distributes revenues from mineral leases on federal lands passed its first test Thursday.
Senate Bill 218 passed unanimously out of the state Senate Education Committee. The bill takes the current bird’s nest of intertwining distribution plans for the hundreds of millions of dollars the state receives annually from the leases and streamlines them to give money to permanent funds for local communities affected by the current drilling boom and for higher education.
Both of those funds could fill with more than $600 million over the next decade or more if the state receives extra revenue from leasing on the Roan Plateau, near Rifle.
Public education and water projects also receive some of the money, as they do under the current formula.
Solar-power bill gains.
A bill that would encourage the Public Utilities Commission to add large-scale solar power to the state’s energy portfolio passed unanimously out of committee Thursday. But the Senate’s Local Government Committee weakened a component that also would have required the PUC to take into account the “likelihood” of a future tax on carbon-dioxide emissions when making decisions about how the state should get its power. The panel changed the bill to say the PUC can take into account the potential for carbon regulations, removing the mandate that it must. It now goes to the full Senate.
