States point to the economic advantages of cleaning up their electric grids.
DENVER — The morning two years ago that Jared Polis announced his run for governor of Colorado, he went to a coffee roaster operating on solar power and promised more renewable energy for the state. Campaigning on that alongside education and health care reform, Mr. Polis, a Democrat, blew away his Republican opponent last fall by 11 percentage points.
This week, the clean-energy voters who helped put him into office will get their first reward. Mr. Polis is expected to sign a remarkable package of 13 environmental and energy bills that will propel Colorado to the top rank of states tackling the climate crisis.
Colorado stands out, but it does not stand alone. A wave of fresh ambition to confront climate change is sweeping through state governments as lawmakers point to the benefits: green jobs, lower electric rates and new tax revenues.
Six states have adopted policies that will effectively require the elimination of carbon dioxide emissions from their electric grids by midcentury, most of them in the past year. So many other states are considering it that the number could double in the next year or two.
This is happening mostly in states like Colorado where Democrats have taken full control of state government, and I think the trend holds important lessons for the Democratic Party. At the national level, the Democrats need to start running hard on climate and energy, instead of paying the issue lip service.
Signs abound that the American public is ready for a serious discussion about our energy options. But how to discuss the subject? For that we should look not just to states like Colorado but, interestingly enough, also to a state under complete Republican control: South Carolina.
This received little national attention, but the South Carolina legislature just adopted a bold policy meant to open the state to more solar power. Utilities like Duke Energy may yet torpedo the plan, but if they are beaten back, South Carolina in a few years could match North Carolina in getting 5 percent of its electrical power from the sun, compared with less than 1 percent last year.
The solar bill is part of the ongoing recuperation in South Carolina from an attempt to build a new nuclear power plant.
