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Committee advances bill to allow transmission in highway rights of way; utilities warn of unintended routing and cost consequences
Summary
House Bill 1292 would create a formal process for transmission developers to request placement of high‑voltage lines in state highway rights of way and prioritize existing corridors. Proponents said co‑locating transmission with highways reduces environmental impacts and speeds build-out; utilities and Tri‑State warned the bill could create presc
Representative Basenacker opened the hearing on House Bill 1292 by laying out Colorado's near‑term need to expand transmission capacity and the bill's purpose: to direct the Colorado Department of Transportation and the Colorado Electric Transmission Authority (CETA) to create processes and a study that would help transmission developers consider state highway rights of way as one prioritized option when siting high‑voltage lines.
Proponents included environmental and conservation groups (Clean Air Task Force, Nature Conservancy, Conservation Colorado), Next Gen Highways and the Colorado Electric Transmission Authority. Supporters said placing new lines in existing, disturbed corridors such as highway rights of way reduces habitat fragmentation, avoids new greenfield impacts, decreases community opposition and can shorten siting and permitting timelines. CETA and Next Gen testified that Colorado may need several billion dollars of transmission investment in the coming decades (witnesses cited figures of roughly $4.0–$4.5 billion in identified transmission needs) and said studies and transparent processes could add low‑impact options for developers.
Witnesses from investor‑owned utilities, Tri‑State, and Xcel Energy testified in an amend position. They supported expanding options but warned the bill's prescriptive prioritization — which asks developers to consider existing corridors and state highway rights of way before pursuing other routes — could produce inferior routing outcomes when it displaced consideration of many other technical and community siting factors. Utilities also said the bill's requirement that Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) applicants include corridor-prioritization analyses inserted routing questions into a phase typically handled later in the siting process and could impose new costs on customers. Tri‑State and Xcel asked that the bill be amended to make the prioritization voluntary for utilities that must seek PUC approvals and to remove an annual right‑of‑way surcharge that would pay CDOT; they also said CDOT already allows longitudinal occupancy in limited cases.
CETA's executive director testified that the authority supports the bill's goal of adding options for siting, and that the CETA transmission-capacity study shows major near‑term needs; he told committee members CETA would be an appropriate lead for the corridor‑identification study.
Committee action: Representative Basenacker moved House Bill 1292 as amended to the Committee on Finance with a favorable recommendation. The committee approved the amendment package and the bill passed the committee vote 11–2.
