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Green Energy Bill
.....The centerpiece bill of Gov. Jared Polis’ green-energy incentives package includes both carrots and sticks for businesses, offering new tax credits to industrial facilities reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also cutting the severance tax ad valorem credit given to oil and gas producers.
....House Bill 1272, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Mike Weissman of Aurora and Junie Joseph of Boulder, also offers consumer-focused tax breaks for purchasing electric vehicles and e- bikes, creates tax benefits for installing heat pumps and launches tax credits for opening and operation geothermal energy facilities. It’s part of a broader package of bills that Polis and Democratic legislators unveiled in early March that touch also on the streamlining of solar installations, the creation of incentives for green-hydrogen production and the introduction of a regulatory environment for carbon-capture projects.
....HB 1272, which passed out of its first committee on Thursday on a Democrat-led, party-line vote, is a cog of the bill portfolio because of its financial investment, proposing to give nearly $100 million in tax breaks in the fiscal year that begins in July 2024 to achieve decarbonization. Of those, the industrial clean energy tax credit, at $20 million, is the second-largest offering, behind only the expanded tax credits for electric vehicles.
Green Energy Bill
Attempting To Redefine Harassment
....A second legislative attempt to redefine harassment in Colorado law took its first step forward Wednesday — but with changes to its own new definition and questions on whether it will bar the state from being able to investigate Equal Employment Opportunity complaints.
....The Protecting Opportunities and Workers’ Rights (POWR) Act advanced on a Democrat-led, party-line vote following a roughly four-hour hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, setting up a likely fight in the Senate Appropriations Committee over its nearly $4 million expected cost. But even as several Democrats said they want to see more changes before backing it on the chamber floor, they joined with a chorus of plaintiffs’ attorneys and members of the women’s bar to laud its underlying attempt to modernize workplace discrimination law.
....The bill would make Colorado the fourth state to replace the decades-old legal precedent that behavior must be “severe or pervasive” to constitute harassment with a broader definition that would allow more workers to take legal action against employers.
....It also would make it harder for companies to assert affirmative defenses against claims, limit nondisclosure agreements in harassment cases and add new protections for individuals with disabilities.
Defining Harassment
Significant Changes
....The Senate sponsor of a bill to give Colorado local governments a right of first refusal on most apartment complexes that go up for sale made a slew of concessions to get the proposal out of a key committee Tuesday — but not enough to win over developers opposed to the idea.
....House Bill 1190, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Andy Boesenecker of Fort Collins and Emily Sirota of Denver, now heads to the Senate floor with a much better chance of passage to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.
....But in addition to business and property groups, the measure now could face blowback from proponents like local officials who say the changes added in the Senate Local Government and Housing Committee may tie their hands too much to render the potential new law effective.
....If it becomes law, HB 1190 would make Colorado the first state in which all city and county governments have a right to match the offer made on sales of certain multifamily properties and purchase the housing complexes instead. At a time when Colorado has become the eighth- most-expensive state for renters, proponents say the bill could give governments the chance to invest in properties that often are sold too quickly for them to compete on and that that they then could maintain as affordable housing.
Changes To Right-to-Refusal
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