Colorado voters have become the first in the nation to vote on and pass a renewable energy standard on as part of a statewide ballot question. By a 53%-47% margin, a majority of voters approved Amendment 37 on the November 2nd ballot; which requires an increasing amount of the electricity in Colorado to come from renewables energy sources such as wind and solar.

Colorado now joins 17 states with minimum clean energy standards as part of a growing trend of states taking the lead to fill the void of federal energy policy.

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Two pieces of legislation have been passed recently by the U.S. Congress contain some provisions that will provide financial incentives for distributed energy technologies including biomass, wind, solar and geothermal. The Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004 [H.R. 1380] and the 2004 American Jobs Creation Act [H.R. 4520] have been signed into law by President Bush. Some of these incentives are new, some are extensions of incentives that have lapsed with the inability of Congress to pass a comprehensive energy bill in the past two years.

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On October 14, 2004 the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released a joint statement related to new FCC rules to facilitate the widespread adoption of broadband internet access over electric power lines, known as Access BPL [Action by the Commission, October 14, 2004 by Report and Order (FCC 04-245)]. The BPL ruling will not only provide households with another option in broadband internet service but it is expected to lead utilties to provide more efficient management of their power supply system, and ensure increased operational reliability. Continue reading