Will Rogers, a popular American humorist in the 1920s, once observed that “I am not a member of any organized party — I am a Democrat.” Generally, that still seems to hold true, but once in a while, there’s a surprise.
Nationally, Democrats were sufficiently organized to pass the health-care bill, and last week in Colorado, Democrats in the legislature organized a brilliant polical maneuver with House Bill 1365.
That’s the legislation which would get Xcel Energy to switch to natural gas for some of its coal-fired electric-generating plants along the Front Range. Since natural gas burns more cleanly than coal, air quality should improve, and thereby please the federal Environmental Protection Agency so much that it might not impose regulations of its own.
This legislation means a bigger market for natural gas in Colorado, which should put more drillers to work, much to the delight of Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, a Grand Junction Republican, and therein lies the political gem.
For at least a year, GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis has accused Colorado Democrats of chasing away gas-industry jobs by enacting regulations to protect our water and wildlife.
(The truth is more complicated, since it relates to falling prices on account of a depressed economy, along with gas development in the Marcellus shales of Pennsylvania and New York, much closer to major markets and thus cheaper to deliver. But mere free-market facts don’t make for a snappy sound-bite on the campaign stump.)
However, Colorado Democrats just took a big step toward increasing Colorado natural-gas production. It either deprives McInnis of a campaign issue, or else forces him to be even more creative when he tries to spin this into something like “more job-killing Democrat regulations.”
It could, however, cost some jobs. Sen. Al White of Hayden said the switch to natural gas could mean the loss of 125 coal-mining jobs in his northwest Colorado district. Further, that coal moves by rail, and that’s more jobs that would be lost. I put in a call to the Union Pacific’s PR department to find out how many, but it was not returned by my deadline.
Back when he was a congressman, though, McInnis didn’t much care about railroad jobs in Colorado, since he supported a 1996 rail merger that killed jobs in his district. As for coal, it’s hard to imagine him telling us that Coloradans need to be breathing more arsenic and mercury.
He could argue that since natural gas costs more than coal to produce the same amount of heat, this will likely cause an increase in electric rates. which will in turn impoverish Colorado consumers while making other states more attractive for business.
But all in all, the Democrats pretty well cut him off at the kneecaps on this one.
Further, I often suspect that there’s not much point in being concerned about employment in Colorado. Our unemployment rate was 7.6 percent in February of last year, and it rose to 8.3 percent this year. Both are below the national averages of 8.2 percent in 2009 and 9.7 percent this year. So isn’t it possible that people move here from other states because job prospects look better here? In that case, the unemployment rate could rise even though there were more jobs.
And one more dismal thought. The Obama administration has moved to overhaul the federal student loan program. It’s easy to predict that colleges will raise tuitions and fees — which have been rising four times faster than inflation for the past 20 years — so as to quickly absorb the additional money. Or, as the coal-mining song goes, “Another day older, and deeper in debt.”
Ed Quillen (ekquillen@gmail.com) of Salida is a regular contributor to The Denver Post.
