January 28, 2025 • 20 mins
HOW IS THE BUSINESS CLIMATE IN COLORADO? The good news is we're not deteriorating further but the bad news is we've crashed in terms of free enterprise since 2011. I've got Kelly Caufield from the Common Sense Institute on at 1 to discuss their latest Free Enterprise Report. It's not good, but it could be worse I suppose. You can read it here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining me now.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The executive director of the common Sense Institute, one of
the policy gems here in the Denver metro area, Kelly
Cawfield joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Hi, Kelly, Hi, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, I mean it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
When I say, you know, common Sense, Independence Institute, the
Steamboat Institute. We have some great policy organizations here in Colorado,
and you guys at common Sense you're a bunch of
egghead nerds who love to dig into budgets and tell.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The rest of us what they say. And for that
I am eternally grateful. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You guys just came out with your Free Enterprise Report,
and I want to start there because the Colorado business
climate has dramatically what's the word I'm looking for? Weekend
is the word I'm looking for since twenty eleven. I
thought it was maybe the last seven to eight years,
but you guys take it back to twenty eleven that
(00:53):
we've seen these things happen that have made our business
environment not as desirable and that's really sad. What did
you guys discover with this free This year's Free Enterprise
Reports give me the high points.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
So we're definitely seeing slippage the Common Sense Institute each
year produces the Free Enterprise Report, where we are quantifying,
evaluating Colorado's competitiveness relative to every other state. And I'll
tell you the bottom line. Right now, we're seeing a
major decrease. We used to be fifteenth in the country
(01:30):
back in twenty eleven and we're now twenty six So
we have slipped eleven spots. We're not going in the
right direction over the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So what is hurting us the most? What are the
issues that contribute to this?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
So when we look across the indices, what's really bringing
us down. It's crime, it's housing, it's education, and it's
a growing state budget. And I can get into the
details of the variables that are driving each So let's
start with public safety.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I think that's top of mind for every Colorado.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
This week, Colorado's rank moved from twenty ninth to forty third.
We're far from a top ten safest state. Know that
there's many in the state with that goal. Colorado is
seeing higher crime rates, homelessness, and overdose deaths. In terms
of housing, this is where we're the worst. Mandy, We
ranked dead last, our fiftieth in terms of housing. The
(02:25):
Common Sense Institute has an index we call it the
home Buyer's Misery Index, and we were able to see
that the inability to buy affordable house is seen across
all of our counties. We saw that in twenty twenty three,
with mortgage rates increasing and housing prices remaining really out
of reach for most Colorado.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So our housing situation is worse than California.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
According to the data that we use, Yes, ah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Lee, and I mean next year, that's surely going to
be different because this house the fires have created a
even greater issue in California.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But that doesn't shock me.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And I think that that is the thing that worries
me the most in terms of losing young population, right,
I don't want to lose millennials because they feel like
they can't buy a house here.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And yet I think that's already happening.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
We have the U Haul stats that showed we've gone
from one of the top ten of people moving in
to one of the top ten of people moving out.
That all goes, I mean, that's all kind of the
end result of this though, right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And it's not just home buyers, it's renters too. We
rank as one of the least affordable places to rent
as well as buy a home in Colorado. So this
is impacting all sides of the spectrum in all ages.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's absolutely terrible. So it does the Free Enterprise Report.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Do you guys look at government sort of edicts and
government things that make it harder to do business in Colorado?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You know we do.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
We looked at as a part of this larger Free
Enterprise competitiveness analysis, we are looking at taxes and fees.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
We're looking at workforce.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
We're looking at what is the state of the growing
state budget. And as I'm talking to employers here in Colorado,
those things matter. They want to know about the taxes,
they want to know whether or not the state budgets
being managed well. And of course we all know workforce
is a top issue for most employers.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And when do you look at workforce? What factors do
you look into?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
So for workforce, we were looking at labor force participation.
We were looking at the post secondary the college going
rate of people living here in Colorado, and.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Those are those are fairly competitive. If I may, I'd
like to share some good news.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Because that's not all bad in this index. So where
are we shining that's right.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So while our overall free enterprise competitiveness ranking fell eleven
spots over the last ten years, something that is positive
is our overall economy and I might confuse people a
little bit, so I want to that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
When we look across all of the states.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
In terms of our economic engine, Colorado is currently performing
pretty well. We have a momentum index in here showing
that there are some challenges ahead, but just to take
a moment we are seeing ourselves as a top ten
economy and that is because relative to other states, we
are getting more people out of poverty.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And back to that workforce.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Component, we have a very high labor force participation rate
for those able to work in those general age ranges
of eighteen to sixty four, so that is what's keeping
this economy booming.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
We have a lot of younger people here that don't
have kids, so both people are in the workforce, so
that is not that surprising to me.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And we know that we have a highly educated workforce
as well.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So our workforce competitiveness that is a very strong suit
for Colorado. What made our healthcare competitiveness index so hot
because we're number four in the twenty twenty three rankings.
So what goes into the healthcare competitive index?
Speaker 4 (06:05):
You're right, healthcare we did score a little bit higher
on that than I think I would have originally expected
have a family in the healthcare sector.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
You know, I'm looking right now in our.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Report as I you know, dig through that that answer.
But I do believe a big part of it is
the number of docs we have in the state. That
ratio of doctors to people is very competitive. I think
the areas that we still need to work on though,
(06:38):
is our healthcare affordability.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I think compared to other states.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
You know, we are seeing insurers leave the marketplace.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
That's well known.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
We do have a very active public policy space with
the public option. You know, these are dynamics that our
data suggests drives.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Up the cost of healthcare.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
But again that general good rating that we're seeing there,
believe it's because the state's attractive to doctors and it
is bringing a nice ratio.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
To I have four doctors that I see on a
semi regular basis. They're all from somewhere else and when
I say what brought you to Colorado, they all say Colorado.
So yeah, we do have the ability to attract great
medical professionals. Kelly, I want to jump to a different
study that you guys just released, and this is something
that I think is really important. We've been talking lately
(07:28):
on the show about Jared Poulis's kind of green energy dreams, right,
That's what I call them.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And I recently was.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
In Germany and they are all in on green energy,
and so I'm talking to people in Germany about just
their I talk to everybody when I travel, I ask
all kinds of questions. And we had a couple of
tour guys. I've told this story like four times now.
And they were young, they were in their twenties. It
was cheaper for them to sublease their apartment, fly to
Thailand and live for three months in the winter in Thailand,
(07:58):
not working that it was to pay their power bill
in Germany over the winter. Now, Germany's all in on
green energy, but everybody talks about Spain. Spain has actually
brought their energy cross down to almost nothing using renewable energy.
But the big difference is Spain is where Spain is
and Germany.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Is where Germany is.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So there's no sun in the winter, there's no wind
in the winter in Germany.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Where are we going to go here? Where are we are? We?
Are we somewhere in the middle? Are we Spain or
are we Germany?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I think we're somewhere in the middle, but we're not
tracking in a good direction. And honestly, Mandy, I don't
think anyone really knew how households were going to be
impacted to meet the state's current greenhouse gas emission reductions
because that data had not been crunched to the best
of our knowledge ECM and sense until we issued this report.
(08:50):
We spent number of months analyzing the best report we
could find the state in their credit to their credit.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Last year did put.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Out a report has a lot name, but it's called
the Pathways Report for short, and it was issued last
year by the Colorado Energy Office. This developed by Ascent Analytics.
That was the group, and we thought, great, finally there's
a report to show how much will it cost to
decarb the state? You know, how much will it cost
to reduce our carbon footprint and to meet the twenty
(09:21):
forty roadmap. And it said one hundred and eight billion
through twenty fifty. That's a huge amount of money, but
that's actually just the amount it cost on the equipment side.
On the utility side, that's how much it would cost
them to meet the state's greenhouse gas reduction targets. Our
economists crunched the numbers to say, okay, well what about
(09:42):
you and me, Mandy, how much do we have to
pay for the Colorado household?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And the data is not good.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
It's showing that electricity prices in order to meet these
mandates by twenty forty and twenty fifty, electricity prices will
grow at more than three times the rate of inflation.
Equation's not good.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
So that's a big deal.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
But what's even more concerning is a nearly thirteen times
of an increase compared to just the historical growth rate
in electricity bills from twenty ten to twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
What does this all mean? In the most simplest of terms.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
We're calculating that the cost to the average Colorado household
by twenty forty is going to be somewhere between sixty four.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Hundred and ninety two hundred.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I am estimating that higher end because even looking at
Excel's own filings, which are publicly available, I think we're
estimating conservatively. So I'm going to say ninety two hundred
per household. That's what you're going to pay, Not to
cast dispersions, although I kind of am going to cast
aspersions here. Excel has every reason to undersell what these
(10:50):
things are actually going to cost, because the only area
where they're not hyper regulated and where they can make
a lot of money is infrastructure. So if they essentially
sell this or undersell the cost, people are more than
likely to say barrel ahead, allowing them to pass.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
All of those hard costs plus a little profit onto
their rate payers. And maybe in what twenty forty we
start seeing a reduction in our power bills if the
promise of green energy is actually reached. There's a lot
of ifs. Maybe perhaps we'll sees that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Are very disconcerting.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
You know, when you look at the two recent rate
filings from Excel Energy, it does show they expect rates
to increase, so you know they're not hiding it. They
are saying that rates will increase. Just what I had
not seen, Mandy, until we were able to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Not to toot our own horn, but I just had
not seen it.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
When you actually break down very complicated public filings information
from the PUC and from Excel, what is the actual
cost to all of.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Us, right, And isn't it amazing?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You know, I'm gonna reflec I just had Amy Oliver
Cook on the show from the Independence Institute to talk
about the fact that when all of this green energy
talk started, the governor came out and made as proclamations
in the Independence Institute were like, wait a minute, we
think that's going to cost more. They came up with
a much different number. It was like one hundred and
eight billion something like that. And as it turns out
(12:19):
now they Independence even undersold how high it was going
to be. And the whole time they were saying, to
the Governor, will give us your data, give us your numbers.
Of course they never they never put anything solid out there, right,
because then they could be held accountable for those predictions.
Or it's like any massive government project. It's the airport,
(12:40):
it's the VA, you know, it's all of these things
that are just as taxpayers were just supposed to accept
that all of these extra expenses, we should have somehow
expected them, even though we're being told one thing and
being sold a much different bill of goods.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I mean, light reel.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I could go on for days with so many of
these boondoggles, and that's what they feel like to me.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I agree, and I think a very you know, natural
question to ask. I know, if I was hearing this data,
I would say, why, you know, why am I having
to pay so much more? We also wanted to crunch
that and help colorad AND's better understand this. You know,
the electricity prices are really going to surge because of
the large investments this state will be required to make
(13:24):
in wind and solar.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
It's not because of natural gas.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
People like to blame, you know, volatile natural gas prices.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That's not it.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
The reason we're all going to be asked to pay
more is wind and solar is expensive. Requires a lot
of capacity to get the electric power generation we're going
to need for this state, and it has to.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Be backed up.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It's not like we can shut down our natural gas plants.
It's not like we can just only rely on wind
and solar because they are unreliable. They are intermittent and
energy And I'm not opposed to wind and solar, but
I also don't want to have a brown out because
in the middle of summer, when it's a billion degrees outside,
there's no wind, you know, I mean these are the things.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That have to be mitigated.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And we haven't even started to talk about the overall
safety of the infrastructure of the grid as it is now.
And they want everybody to electrify everything. Our grid can't
do that. So where's the money to fix the grid,
to bring it up to standards to electrify everything. There's
just Kelly, there's way too many unanswered questions for my
taste here.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I agree, and we did, you know, as our economists
studied the state reports that were made available, absolutely important questions.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Remain that we should be asking our.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Policy makers on both sides of the aisle, what is
the full cost and feasibility of the power sources needed
to comply with the state's policy.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I mean again, we're seeing.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
That the state is estimating that seventy percent will need
to be renewables, wind and solar, But what about coal?
Speaker 3 (14:54):
What about natural gas?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Right? Could we be looking at other technologies such as
carbon capture and storage. None of that's included in the
state's roadmap.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
To get there.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I just the whole carbon capture I understand, And I
don't know what happened to the bill, but there was
a bill that would have made it more difficult for
us to do carbon capture. And I'm not convinced that
carbon capture is even really a thing. That's one of
those things that feels like it makes people feel better.
So we're going to pretend to put a bunch of
carbon dioxide down, you know, two thousand feet into the
Earth's mantle.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I whatever. Okay, I don't know about the science, but Colorado.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Was trying to make that more difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
And I'm like, what are we doing here.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
We're legislating against ourselves and our own best interests. We're
legislating ourselves into the dark ages.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
And I mean that literally.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
The state had a pretty narrow constrained set of electric
power resources that they studied, you know, a year ago,
and I think it's a very fair question why not
have a more all of the above energy policy approach?
Can't we be more innovative and lean on some newer
technologies to at least explore how can they have maybe
a bigger role in the roadmap.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Well, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I don't know if it will pass, but there's a
bipartisan bill that would recognize nuclear energy as a viable
green energy alternative to count towards our green energy goals.
And you know what frustrates me is that we are
spending an enormous amount of money trying to change the
weather instead of trying to mitigate for the weather changes,
(16:24):
which makes a whole lot more sense to me than
trying to believe, in a very egotistical manner, that we
who have never been able to control the weather before,
can somehow control it now.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I don't understand why.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We don't shift our focus to how do we prevent
the damages that could occur as the planet warms or
gets colder or whatever.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
That's right, And I did see that legislation as well,
and I'm encouraged to see, you know, bipartisan policy makers
trying to tackle this and think about other sources of energy.
I mean, the facts are Colorado is the fourteenth highest
cost of living state in the country. It's an area
where both Democrats and Republicans, Majority leader, minority leader, you know,
(17:11):
everyone you talk to here in Colorado and obviously nationally
it's all about cost of living.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Right, So the time is now.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
We've been able to show this is going to have
a significant impact on cost of living. This is a
utility that almost everyone is paying. So I really hope
that by partisan leaders governor's office will review this data
and keep it in mind as they're looking.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
For that path forward. I would hope.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
So, I mean, you know, I'd like to use our
resources to the best of our ability. I'm not convinced
that putting solar panels across the Eastern Plains is a
good idea, but let's talk about putting solar panels on
new bills and new businesses to get as much of
that going as we can. At the same time, I
I feel like at some point we are going to
(17:58):
reach the point of no return where we can't pull
this stuff back, where.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Even if it no longer makes.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Sense, the sunk cost fallacy will keep us going down
this path. So where are we in that process? And
is there anything other than electing new people to the
legislature that we can do to sort of say, look,
we want all things.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
On the table.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I think information is power. It's said a lot, but
it's true.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
You know, we were lacking talking points, you know, as
voters trying to you know, hold policymakers on both sides
of the aisle accountable.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
We're hoping it common sense.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
This data will give you the talking point that you need,
like great roadmap. Appreciate that focus on greenhouse gas reductions.
I didn't realize I have to pay ninety two hundred
dollars more. So we're hoping that we're opening that door
where you can at least have that educated conversation with
your state policy maker.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
On a totally unrelated but related note, I don't know
if you saw that. Trump basically through the in California
off the endangered species list so they can turn the
water back on.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
In northern California.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
For seventeen years they have stopped the flow of water
because environmentalists prioritize to smelt. And don't get me wrong,
I'm not anti smelt. I'm sure they're adorable little fish.
But people want to be put first, and I think
that we may be reaching the tipping point after so
many years of massive inflation, where people are going to say, oh,
sure I want to green energy, but wait, it's going
(19:28):
to cost what To your point, if you guys are
not familiar with the Common Sense Institute's work, they are
outstanding and they write all kinds of nerdy stuff. But
as Kelly just said, you will empower yourself to have
these conversations with other Coloradins in a coherent way, so
maybe we can begin to move those elections in a
different direction with people that will pay attention to making
(19:50):
Colorado a vibrant, wonderful, affordable.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Place to live.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Kelly Cawfield from the Common Sense Institute, thank you so
much for your time today.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Thank you, Mandy. Appreciate what you do.
Joining me now.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
The executive director of the common Sense Institute, one of
the policy gems here in the Denver metro area, Kelly
Cawfield joins me.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Hi, Kelly, Hi, thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Well, I mean it.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
When I say, you know, common Sense, Independence Institute, the
Steamboat Institute. We have some great policy organizations here in Colorado,
and you guys at common Sense you're a bunch of
egghead nerds who love to dig into budgets and tell.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
The rest of us what they say. And for that
I am eternally grateful. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
You guys just came out with your Free Enterprise Report,
and I want to start there because the Colorado business
climate has dramatically what's the word I'm looking for? Weekend
is the word I'm looking for since twenty eleven. I
thought it was maybe the last seven to eight years,
but you guys take it back to twenty eleven that
(00:53):
we've seen these things happen that have made our business
environment not as desirable and that's really sad. What did
you guys discover with this free This year's Free Enterprise
Reports give me the high points.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
So we're definitely seeing slippage the Common Sense Institute each
year produces the Free Enterprise Report, where we are quantifying,
evaluating Colorado's competitiveness relative to every other state. And I'll
tell you the bottom line. Right now, we're seeing a
major decrease. We used to be fifteenth in the country
(01:30):
back in twenty eleven and we're now twenty six So
we have slipped eleven spots. We're not going in the
right direction over the last ten years.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So what is hurting us the most? What are the
issues that contribute to this?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
So when we look across the indices, what's really bringing
us down. It's crime, it's housing, it's education, and it's
a growing state budget. And I can get into the
details of the variables that are driving each So let's
start with public safety.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I think that's top of mind for every Colorado.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
This week, Colorado's rank moved from twenty ninth to forty third.
We're far from a top ten safest state. Know that
there's many in the state with that goal. Colorado is
seeing higher crime rates, homelessness, and overdose deaths. In terms
of housing, this is where we're the worst. Mandy, We
ranked dead last, our fiftieth in terms of housing. The
(02:25):
Common Sense Institute has an index we call it the
home Buyer's Misery Index, and we were able to see
that the inability to buy affordable house is seen across
all of our counties. We saw that in twenty twenty three,
with mortgage rates increasing and housing prices remaining really out
of reach for most Colorado.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
So our housing situation is worse than California.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
According to the data that we use, Yes, ah.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Lee, and I mean next year, that's surely going to
be different because this house the fires have created a
even greater issue in California.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
But that doesn't shock me.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And I think that that is the thing that worries
me the most in terms of losing young population, right,
I don't want to lose millennials because they feel like
they can't buy a house here.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And yet I think that's already happening.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
We have the U Haul stats that showed we've gone
from one of the top ten of people moving in
to one of the top ten of people moving out.
That all goes, I mean, that's all kind of the
end result of this though, right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And it's not just home buyers, it's renters too. We
rank as one of the least affordable places to rent
as well as buy a home in Colorado. So this
is impacting all sides of the spectrum in all ages.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It's absolutely terrible. So it does the Free Enterprise Report.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Do you guys look at government sort of edicts and
government things that make it harder to do business in Colorado?
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You know we do.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
We looked at as a part of this larger Free
Enterprise competitiveness analysis, we are looking at taxes and fees.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
We're looking at workforce.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
We're looking at what is the state of the growing
state budget. And as I'm talking to employers here in Colorado,
those things matter. They want to know about the taxes,
they want to know whether or not the state budgets
being managed well. And of course we all know workforce
is a top issue for most employers.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
And when do you look at workforce? What factors do
you look into?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
So for workforce, we were looking at labor force participation.
We were looking at the post secondary the college going
rate of people living here in Colorado, and.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Those are those are fairly competitive. If I may, I'd
like to share some good news.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Because that's not all bad in this index. So where
are we shining that's right.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So while our overall free enterprise competitiveness ranking fell eleven
spots over the last ten years, something that is positive
is our overall economy and I might confuse people a
little bit, so I want to that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
When we look across all of the states.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
In terms of our economic engine, Colorado is currently performing
pretty well. We have a momentum index in here showing
that there are some challenges ahead, but just to take
a moment we are seeing ourselves as a top ten
economy and that is because relative to other states, we
are getting more people out of poverty.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
And back to that workforce.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Component, we have a very high labor force participation rate
for those able to work in those general age ranges
of eighteen to sixty four, so that is what's keeping
this economy booming.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
We have a lot of younger people here that don't
have kids, so both people are in the workforce, so
that is not that surprising to me.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
And we know that we have a highly educated workforce
as well.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
So our workforce competitiveness that is a very strong suit
for Colorado. What made our healthcare competitiveness index so hot
because we're number four in the twenty twenty three rankings.
So what goes into the healthcare competitive index?
Speaker 4 (06:05):
You're right, healthcare we did score a little bit higher
on that than I think I would have originally expected
have a family in the healthcare sector.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
You know, I'm looking right now in our.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Report as I you know, dig through that that answer.
But I do believe a big part of it is
the number of docs we have in the state. That
ratio of doctors to people is very competitive. I think
the areas that we still need to work on though,
(06:38):
is our healthcare affordability.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I think compared to other states.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
You know, we are seeing insurers leave the marketplace.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
That's well known.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
We do have a very active public policy space with
the public option. You know, these are dynamics that our
data suggests drives.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Up the cost of healthcare.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
But again that general good rating that we're seeing there,
believe it's because the state's attractive to doctors and it
is bringing a nice ratio.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
To I have four doctors that I see on a
semi regular basis. They're all from somewhere else and when
I say what brought you to Colorado, they all say Colorado.
So yeah, we do have the ability to attract great
medical professionals. Kelly, I want to jump to a different
study that you guys just released, and this is something
that I think is really important. We've been talking lately
(07:28):
on the show about Jared Poulis's kind of green energy dreams, right,
That's what I call them.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And I recently was.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
In Germany and they are all in on green energy,
and so I'm talking to people in Germany about just
their I talk to everybody when I travel, I ask
all kinds of questions. And we had a couple of
tour guys. I've told this story like four times now.
And they were young, they were in their twenties. It
was cheaper for them to sublease their apartment, fly to
Thailand and live for three months in the winter in Thailand,
(07:58):
not working that it was to pay their power bill
in Germany over the winter. Now, Germany's all in on
green energy, but everybody talks about Spain. Spain has actually
brought their energy cross down to almost nothing using renewable energy.
But the big difference is Spain is where Spain is
and Germany.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
Is where Germany is.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So there's no sun in the winter, there's no wind
in the winter in Germany.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Where are we going to go here? Where are we are? We?
Are we somewhere in the middle? Are we Spain or
are we Germany?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I think we're somewhere in the middle, but we're not
tracking in a good direction. And honestly, Mandy, I don't
think anyone really knew how households were going to be
impacted to meet the state's current greenhouse gas emission reductions
because that data had not been crunched to the best
of our knowledge ECM and sense until we issued this report.
(08:50):
We spent number of months analyzing the best report we
could find the state in their credit to their credit.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Last year did put.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Out a report has a lot name, but it's called
the Pathways Report for short, and it was issued last
year by the Colorado Energy Office. This developed by Ascent Analytics.
That was the group, and we thought, great, finally there's
a report to show how much will it cost to
decarb the state? You know, how much will it cost
to reduce our carbon footprint and to meet the twenty
(09:21):
forty roadmap. And it said one hundred and eight billion
through twenty fifty. That's a huge amount of money, but
that's actually just the amount it cost on the equipment side.
On the utility side, that's how much it would cost
them to meet the state's greenhouse gas reduction targets. Our
economists crunched the numbers to say, okay, well what about
(09:42):
you and me, Mandy, how much do we have to
pay for the Colorado household?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
And the data is not good.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
It's showing that electricity prices in order to meet these
mandates by twenty forty and twenty fifty, electricity prices will
grow at more than three times the rate of inflation.
Equation's not good.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
So that's a big deal.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
But what's even more concerning is a nearly thirteen times
of an increase compared to just the historical growth rate
in electricity bills from twenty ten to twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
What does this all mean? In the most simplest of terms.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
We're calculating that the cost to the average Colorado household
by twenty forty is going to be somewhere between sixty four.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Hundred and ninety two hundred.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
I am estimating that higher end because even looking at
Excel's own filings, which are publicly available, I think we're
estimating conservatively. So I'm going to say ninety two hundred
per household. That's what you're going to pay, Not to
cast dispersions, although I kind of am going to cast
aspersions here. Excel has every reason to undersell what these
(10:50):
things are actually going to cost, because the only area
where they're not hyper regulated and where they can make
a lot of money is infrastructure. So if they essentially
sell this or undersell the cost, people are more than
likely to say barrel ahead, allowing them to pass.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
All of those hard costs plus a little profit onto
their rate payers. And maybe in what twenty forty we
start seeing a reduction in our power bills if the
promise of green energy is actually reached. There's a lot
of ifs. Maybe perhaps we'll sees that.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Are very disconcerting.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
I agree.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
You know, when you look at the two recent rate
filings from Excel Energy, it does show they expect rates
to increase, so you know they're not hiding it. They
are saying that rates will increase. Just what I had
not seen, Mandy, until we were able to do it.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Not to toot our own horn, but I just had
not seen it.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
When you actually break down very complicated public filings information
from the PUC and from Excel, what is the actual
cost to all of.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Us, right, And isn't it amazing?
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You know, I'm gonna reflec I just had Amy Oliver
Cook on the show from the Independence Institute to talk
about the fact that when all of this green energy
talk started, the governor came out and made as proclamations
in the Independence Institute were like, wait a minute, we
think that's going to cost more. They came up with
a much different number. It was like one hundred and
eight billion something like that. And as it turns out
(12:19):
now they Independence even undersold how high it was going
to be. And the whole time they were saying, to
the Governor, will give us your data, give us your numbers.
Of course they never they never put anything solid out there, right,
because then they could be held accountable for those predictions.
Or it's like any massive government project. It's the airport,
(12:40):
it's the VA, you know, it's all of these things
that are just as taxpayers were just supposed to accept
that all of these extra expenses, we should have somehow
expected them, even though we're being told one thing and
being sold a much different bill of goods.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
I mean, light reel.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
I could go on for days with so many of
these boondoggles, and that's what they feel like to me.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I agree, and I think a very you know, natural
question to ask. I know, if I was hearing this data,
I would say, why, you know, why am I having
to pay so much more? We also wanted to crunch
that and help colorad AND's better understand this. You know,
the electricity prices are really going to surge because of
the large investments this state will be required to make
(13:24):
in wind and solar.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
It's not because of natural gas.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
People like to blame, you know, volatile natural gas prices.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
That's not it.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
The reason we're all going to be asked to pay
more is wind and solar is expensive. Requires a lot
of capacity to get the electric power generation we're going
to need for this state, and it has to.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Be backed up.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
It's not like we can shut down our natural gas plants.
It's not like we can just only rely on wind
and solar because they are unreliable. They are intermittent and
energy And I'm not opposed to wind and solar, but
I also don't want to have a brown out because
in the middle of summer, when it's a billion degrees outside,
there's no wind, you know, I mean these are the things.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
That have to be mitigated.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And we haven't even started to talk about the overall
safety of the infrastructure of the grid as it is now.
And they want everybody to electrify everything. Our grid can't
do that. So where's the money to fix the grid,
to bring it up to standards to electrify everything. There's
just Kelly, there's way too many unanswered questions for my
taste here.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
I agree, and we did, you know, as our economists
studied the state reports that were made available, absolutely important questions.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Remain that we should be asking our.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
Policy makers on both sides of the aisle, what is
the full cost and feasibility of the power sources needed
to comply with the state's policy.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
I mean again, we're seeing.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
That the state is estimating that seventy percent will need
to be renewables, wind and solar, But what about coal?
Speaker 3 (14:54):
What about natural gas?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Right? Could we be looking at other technologies such as
carbon capture and storage. None of that's included in the
state's roadmap.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
To get there.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
I just the whole carbon capture I understand, And I
don't know what happened to the bill, but there was
a bill that would have made it more difficult for
us to do carbon capture. And I'm not convinced that
carbon capture is even really a thing. That's one of
those things that feels like it makes people feel better.
So we're going to pretend to put a bunch of
carbon dioxide down, you know, two thousand feet into the
Earth's mantle.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
I whatever. Okay, I don't know about the science, but Colorado.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Was trying to make that more difficult to do.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
And I'm like, what are we doing here.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
We're legislating against ourselves and our own best interests. We're
legislating ourselves into the dark ages.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
And I mean that literally.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
The state had a pretty narrow constrained set of electric
power resources that they studied, you know, a year ago,
and I think it's a very fair question why not
have a more all of the above energy policy approach?
Can't we be more innovative and lean on some newer
technologies to at least explore how can they have maybe
a bigger role in the roadmap.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Well, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
I don't know if it will pass, but there's a
bipartisan bill that would recognize nuclear energy as a viable
green energy alternative to count towards our green energy goals.
And you know what frustrates me is that we are
spending an enormous amount of money trying to change the
weather instead of trying to mitigate for the weather changes,
(16:24):
which makes a whole lot more sense to me than
trying to believe, in a very egotistical manner, that we
who have never been able to control the weather before,
can somehow control it now.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I don't understand why.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We don't shift our focus to how do we prevent
the damages that could occur as the planet warms or
gets colder or whatever.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
That's right, And I did see that legislation as well,
and I'm encouraged to see, you know, bipartisan policy makers
trying to tackle this and think about other sources of energy.
I mean, the facts are Colorado is the fourteenth highest
cost of living state in the country. It's an area
where both Democrats and Republicans, Majority leader, minority leader, you know,
(17:11):
everyone you talk to here in Colorado and obviously nationally
it's all about cost of living.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Right, So the time is now.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
We've been able to show this is going to have
a significant impact on cost of living. This is a
utility that almost everyone is paying. So I really hope
that by partisan leaders governor's office will review this data
and keep it in mind as they're looking.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
For that path forward. I would hope.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
So, I mean, you know, I'd like to use our
resources to the best of our ability. I'm not convinced
that putting solar panels across the Eastern Plains is a
good idea, but let's talk about putting solar panels on
new bills and new businesses to get as much of
that going as we can. At the same time, I
I feel like at some point we are going to
(17:58):
reach the point of no return where we can't pull
this stuff back, where.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Even if it no longer makes.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Sense, the sunk cost fallacy will keep us going down
this path. So where are we in that process? And
is there anything other than electing new people to the
legislature that we can do to sort of say, look,
we want all things.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
On the table.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I think information is power. It's said a lot, but
it's true.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
You know, we were lacking talking points, you know, as
voters trying to you know, hold policymakers on both sides
of the aisle accountable.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
We're hoping it common sense.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
This data will give you the talking point that you need,
like great roadmap. Appreciate that focus on greenhouse gas reductions.
I didn't realize I have to pay ninety two hundred
dollars more. So we're hoping that we're opening that door
where you can at least have that educated conversation with
your state policy maker.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
On a totally unrelated but related note, I don't know
if you saw that. Trump basically through the in California
off the endangered species list so they can turn the
water back on.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
In northern California.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
For seventeen years they have stopped the flow of water
because environmentalists prioritize to smelt. And don't get me wrong,
I'm not anti smelt. I'm sure they're adorable little fish.
But people want to be put first, and I think
that we may be reaching the tipping point after so
many years of massive inflation, where people are going to say, oh,
sure I want to green energy, but wait, it's going
(19:28):
to cost what To your point, if you guys are
not familiar with the Common Sense Institute's work, they are
outstanding and they write all kinds of nerdy stuff. But
as Kelly just said, you will empower yourself to have
these conversations with other Coloradins in a coherent way, so
maybe we can begin to move those elections in a
different direction with people that will pay attention to making
(19:50):
Colorado a vibrant, wonderful, affordable.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Place to live.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Kelly Cawfield from the Common Sense Institute, thank you so
much for your time today.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Thank you, Mandy. Appreciate what you do.
The Mandy Connell Podcast News
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