Court Upholds Colorado's Renewable Portfolio Standard
By Tripp Baltz, Bloomberg BNA.
A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge to Colorado's renewable portfolio standard, finding that the standard does not disproportionately harm out-of-state businesses.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling against the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (EELI), which argued that Colorado's renewable portfolio standard means that some out-of-state coal producers will lose business with out-of-state utilities who feed power onto an interconnected grid serving 11 Western states, Canada and Mexico.
The institute had argued that, because electricity can go anywhere on the grid and come from anywhere on the grid, and because Colorado is a net importer of electricity, the out-of-state coal producers would be harmed, the court noted.