Hurd, Evans walking fine line on renewable energy as Trump pushes ‘drill, baby, drill’ oil, gas agenda

Colorado sends four Democrats and four Republicans to the U.S. House of Representatives. Of them, Jeff Hurd, a Republican from Grand Junction, and Gabe Evans, a Republican from Fort Lupton, will be the most interesting to watch during the next two years.

These two representatives, both new to Congress in January, were among 21 Republican signatories in the House to a letter calling for restraint in efforts to gut the Inflation Reduction Act.

The letter expresses concern about “disruptive changes to our nation’s energy tax structure.” The New York Times and Utility Dive both interpreted the language as a reference to the IRA, the landmark climate legislation adopted in August 2022. President Donald Trump, the Times notes, often talks about repealing the law.

Atlas Public Policy, a research firm, reported in February that 80% of funds authorized by the law have gone to Congressional districts represented by Republicans.

Hurd, an attorney who formerly was chief counsel for the Delta-Montrose Electric Association, essentially replaced Lauren Boebert in the Third Congressional District. Boebert was almost certainly headed for defeat had she tried to run against Aspen’s Adam Frisch a second time in the Western Slope-dominated and Republican-leaning district after squeaking out just 50.6% of votes in the strongly Republican-leaning district. With a new home in Windsor, she easily won election in Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District.

While Boebert inevitably echoes Trump, Hurd signaled his measured distance from MAGA hat-wearing positions when he criticized Trump’s blanket pardon of rioters who had invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. At the same time, his bill, Productive Public Lands Act, rhymes with Trump’s drill-baby-drill slogan. Never mind that the United States has already been setting records for oil and gas extraction.

As long as he can survive Republican primaries. Hurd can probably return to Washington for a good many terms. His drill bill is likely part of that political dance.

Evans has a more tricky path to negotiate. He narrowly beat the incumbent Democrat, Yadira Caraveo, in the Eighth Congressional District. The district extends from the edge of Denver to the farm country of northern Colorado. Although a former police officer in Arvada, he nonetheless refrained from criticizing Trump’s pardons of  the rioters, as Denver TV newscaster Kyle Clark pointed out.

Most of Weld County lies in his district. The county delivers 82% of Colorado’s crude oil and 56% of its natural gas extraction. The district also has the Vestas factory in Brighton that produces nacelles for wind turbines. Vestas has 1,800 employees in Colorado between that factory and another in Windsor. Evans’ district also has many solar energy installations.

On March 13, Evans visited the Vestas factory, a five-megawatt solar installation near LaSalle, and an oil installation. Bayswater, operator of the latter, proclaims itself a producer of “some of the cleanest energy molecules in the country and world.”

Invited to tag along, Channel 4 gave Evans the time to say that he favored an “all-of-the-above safe, affordable, secure energy supply to bring costs down to consumers and jobs back to the United States.”

That “all-of-the-above energy approach” was a key element of the letter signed by Evans and Hurd. Combined with a robust advanced manufacturing sector, the approach “will support the United States’ position as a global energy leader,” the letter said. “Both our constituencies and the energy industry alike remain concerned about disruptive changes to our nation’s energy tax structure.”

Tax credits adopted over the last decade “allowed energy developers to plan with these tax incentives in mind. These timelines have been relied upon when it comes to capital allocation, planning, and project commitments, all of which would be jeopardized by premature credit phase outs or additional restrictive mechanisms such as limiting transferability.”

The Evans all-of-the-above tour was arranged by a former Republican state senator, Greg Brophy. Brophy grows watermelons north of Wray and operates an organization called The Western Way. Brophy has been a strong supporter of renewable energy for eastern Colorado and also has a presence on the Western Slope.

Brophy told me that he has organized a similar tour for another member of Congress from Colorado, but it has not been scheduled. He declined to identify the representative.

What if Trump succeeds in rolling back the federal energy tax credits? Energy Innovation, a think tank, estimates increased average household energy costs in Colorado of $180 per year by 2030.

Will other Republicans in Colorado’s congressional delegation join Evans and Hurd? After all, renewable energy didn’t start out as a partisan issue.

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on Big Pivots. Allen Best is a former Eagle County resident and editor of the Vail Trail newspaper. Please consider donating to Big Pivots, a nonprofit news organization focused on the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable and other sources of energy.