When Democratic legislators on Capitol Hill began crafting the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, they were intent on wielding the federal government’s power to create industrial momentum via investment in areas such as renewable energy, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper said.
Now, if temporarily, that momentum has been lost.
“The IRA, we knew, was an unprecedented effort to push this country in the direction of renewable energy and long-term sustainability, and it’s to a big part been derailed,” he said.
The Democrat representing Colorado met with food manufacturing and restaurant owners, solar power stakeholders and city officials in Durango on Friday outside Peak Food & Beverage in Bodo Industrial Park.
Hickenlooper, standing under a 114-panel solar array installed by Shaw Solar on Peak Food & Beverage’s roof, championed renewable energy as path to long-term sustainability.
He also wagged his finger at the Trump administration’s and Republican efforts to rollback the IRA’s federal funding for renewable energy programs, warning federal funding freezes and canceled grants will slash millions of jobs and inflate energy prices around the country.
The momentum created by federal investments most often first benefits large urban areas, overlooking rural communities. That’s why the IRA included the Rural Energy for America Program, Hickenlooper said, so that rural America would not be left behind in what he described as a “great transition” from costly coal mining operations to renewable energies such as wind and solar power.
He said in an interview with The Durango Herald withholding federal funding from renewable energy initiatives hurts red states at which two-thirds of IRA renewable energy investments were aimed, and it’s in the self-interest of U.S. House representatives in those states to claw back funding.
“It’s their small businesses in their red states that are at risk,” he said. “And either they’re going to step up to the plate and get it done and reclaim a lot of those investments the federal government was making in their states, or they’re going to turn their backs.”
If representatives choose the latter option and snub their constituents, the voters should replace them, Hickenlooper said.
La Plata Electric Association CEO Chris Hansen said the recent federal policy changes are making solar energy projects 40% more costly than they were just several months ago.
“We are striving every day to deliver affordable electricity, affordable energy for our members, that’s going to get tougher,” he said.
The Trump administration’s tariffs have impacted the costs of all energy sources, not just renewables like solar, wind and batteries, he said. Steel, aluminum, copper and other vital elements of the energy economy are more expensive.
“A recent analysis shows that by the middle of next decade, this policy change and the tariffs that go with it could increase bills by about $280 per year per family,” he said. “Think about that for a moment. Adding about $300 to everybody’s electricity bills.”
That hurts low-income families most, he said.
Tailwind Nutrition CEO and founder Jeff Vierling said REAP funding allowed Tailwind to install a 55 kilowatt solar array on its sports food product manufacturing facility.
The solar array generates more electricity than the facility consumes, pumping more electrical power back into the grid. But that’s just where the benefits start, he said.
Tailwind’s retail partners such as REI require it to meet annual carbon emission reduction targets; its customers value outdoors, recreation and being environmentally conscious, making renewable energy important to its brand; and Tailwind wouldn’t have been able to afford the solar array without funding from REAP.
Tailwind’s energy costs are monumentally down as well, Vierling said. Its electricity bill in June this year was $286 compared with $1,541 in June 2024.
“That’s quite a bit of savings, and that savings that we’re realizing on a monthly basis, we’re putting right back into growing Tailwind, growing jobs here in the community,” he said.
Peak Food & Beverage CEO and co-founder Kris Oyler said his 40%-employee-owned company pays its 275 employees a living wage between $24 an hour to an average of $27 and rents space to small-business tenants. Although the company activated its solar array in March, Oyler expects to save about $8,000 in utility expenses annually.
“That helps our economic viability in the industry,” he said. “The restaurant industry typically has very low margins, so anywhere where we can save, I tell my team, look for nickels and pennies whenever they can.”
Peak Food & Beverage is in a better position to pay its workers a living wage, and keeps its renters’ utility costs down because of federal funding opportunities such as REAP, he said.
Durango Solar Works owner Derek Wadsworth said despite setbacks such as the Trump administration’s federal funding freeze, solar energy continues to trend toward sustainable growth. But federal support “is about to vanish.”
He said renewable energy, particularly solar and battery storage, are “deployable, employable and affordable.”
Durango Solar Works added approximately 2 megawatts, or 5 million kilowatt-hours, to the grid in 2024. When one considers all the contributions by other solar installers, which have continued to become more common over the past two decades, renewable energy’s transition from small scale to large scale becomes clear, he said.
The solar industry provides jobs with living wages directly and indirectly, supporting other businesses in concrete excavation, heat pumps and other electricians, he said.
And, he added, although solar infrastructure isn’t free, its fuel source – sunshine – is.
“We all thrive when energy is cheap,” he said. “Solar and storage are currently offering some of the lowest energy sources in the world. Maybe it isn’t the right solution everywhere, but it certainly works really well here in Colorado.”
Hickenlooper said the federal rolling back of renewable energy support is a “reckless effort to abandon so many of the investments we’ve been making over a long period of time.”
He said he’s hopeful Democrats can still work with moderate Republicans in a bipartisan effort to restore investments into win, solar and other renewable energies. But that requires keeping pressure on elected officials.
“Make no mistake, there has been a tipping point. This great transition is not going to go back, and efforts to slow it are economically costly,” he said.
cburney@durangoherald.com
