Fires of various sizes across the west. Colorado is on the right side, of course.
The Colorado State Open Thread series is to celebrate, appreciate, nominate, not obfuscate, dominate, state and confiscate all that is notable and wonderful about our square(ish) and fantastic state of Colorado so that those who live, visit, think about and perhaps aren’t all that familiar with our state can become more familiar with our state and perhaps join us in visiting or living here at some point.
The issue dominating the headlines around much of the state at this point seems to be the hot, dry weather which has brought wildfires aplenty to the state. The map above shows fires of various sizes, from less than one acre all the way up to the Lee fire west of Meeker at over 130,000 acres. If you want to see any one in particular, just visit the website at the top of the map and you’ll get the latest federal size record for the fire you’re looking for.
Yesterday, while we were out on a pontoon boat on Lake Estes, we were watching a tiny wildfire (0.3 acre) that was started by lightning on the Lumpy Ridge north of Estes Park. It was dubbed the Twin Owls fire and it was put out by firefighters rather than let burn. It is not on the above map. A fire can start anywhere in Colorado in these dry conditions and we’re hoping for the burns to be controlled rather than raging monsters.
In other Colorado News, from the Colorado Sun:
Xcel says it needs to spend $22 billion to keep up with potential demand from Colorado data centers by 2040
All this is forecast, but it is based off projections on whether or not companies will be building data centers here or in other areas of the country. These aren’t guaranteed, and if Xcel builds to meet this demand and the data centers don’t ultimately get built here, Colorado consumers may wind up on the hook for this overbuild.
The Colorado Public Utilities Commission is already expressing skepticism about the forecast of Xcel Energy’s subsidiary Public Service of Colorado, or PSCo. The company expects to have a total demand of 8.5 GW by 2031.
“This is a really massive load forecast far in excess of what we’ve seen on the system, not to say it can’t happen,” PUC Commissioner Megan Gilman said at a meeting Aug. 6, adding “the vast majority of that forecast is far from certain.”
PUC Chairman Eric Blank said Xcel Energy in its pending electric resource plan — which calculates the utility’s electricity demand and the resources needed to meet — should have a load of about 5 GW or no more than the company’s low-end forecast of 7.6 GW.
“There is so much uncertainty now that we need to approach this decision with humility,” Blank said.
Don’t forget — data centers also need lots of water for cooling at this point, so that’s another demand Colorado can’t supply in great quantities. Data centers right now seem to be built to generate crypto currencies. Don’t count me as a fan, even though I used to work in data centers for cloud storage.
The TABOR sword cuts deep yet again — People don’t learn.
This time around, the TABOR tax cuts have the Trump tax bill to blame, and perhaps it won’t last as long as the previous time as far as the damage goes, but we shall see after the damage hits hard.
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Due to sweeping federal tax cuts signed into law last month by President Donald Trump, Colorado expects to find itself below the TABOR cap for the first time since 2020. That has left lawmakers searching for as much as $800 million in spending cuts or new revenue to close a budget hole created just days into the new fiscal year.
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“We do these short-sighted things, because some groups want to shrink government,” former state Rep. Chris DeGruy Kennedy, the president of the Bell Policy Center, told The Sun in an interview. The tax cuts weren’t that impactful while the state was over the TABOR cap, he said, “but now, we’re seeing the damage from this.”
Polis defended the tax cuts in a statement to The Sun.
“The income tax cuts save every taxpayer money and are what helped grow our economy,” Polis said. “Without them, Colorado would likely have worse unemployment and our economy wouldn’t be growing as fast.”
Ally Sullivan, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, added that the state’s current budget crunch was caused by the Trump administration’s tax bill, not state actions.
“If not for the federal administration blowing a $1.2 billion dollar hole in the budget in the form of corporate tax giveaways, Colorado would continue to have a TABOR surplus and people would be getting a refund check, but now Trump and Congressional Republicans have ripped that out of people’s wallets,” the statement said.
From the Durango Herald, about a month ago, but I just noticed it:
Colorado governor won’t say if state handed over residents’ personal information to ICE
Shelby Wieman, a spokesperson for Polis, declined to respond to a question Monday about how the state has handled nine subpoenas received from the feds since February seeking personal information about Coloradans.
Some of the subpoenas – obtained and published by The Colorado Sun on Friday – appear to be very similar to a subpoena that a judge last month found violated Colorado law aimed at protecting Coloradans’ personal information.
Eight of the subpoenas came from Immigration and Customs Enforcement or its subagency Homeland Security Investigations and one came from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.
The requests to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, the Department of Revenue Marijuana Enforcement Division and the Department of Public Health and Environment seek all kinds of information, including names, wages, birthdays, social security numbers and addresses.
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Colorado law prohibits state agencies from providing immigration officials with personal information unless it is part of a criminal investigation. Last month, a state judge ruled that one of the subpoenas sent by ICE to Colorado’s labor department in April did not meet that exception.
This is copied from the Colorado Sun by the Durango Herald, but I figure it’s important enough to include here even if it’s month-old news. It’s still bad.
I hope you folks enjoy the last days of summer, good vegetables from your gardens and summer food markets, Pallisade peaches, melons from Rocky Ford, Hatch peppers and lessening smoke from wildfires. Please contribute some thoughts below — the Open Thread wouldn’t be nearly as interesting without you. The floor is yours.
