Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am filing with the Secretary of State House Bill 05-1133, "Concerning measures to promote energy efficiency," to the Colorado Secretary of State. I vetoed this bill as of 11:01 a.m. today and this letter sets forth my reasons for doing so.

H.B. 1133 is a bill that, as amended, requires the Public Utilities Commission to promulgate rules for implementing residential energy efficiency programs—presumably energy audits homes and the like—and ensures that Xcel Energy and other natural gas providers can raise fees on residential customers to pay for the programs.

H.B. 1133 exempts industrial and commercial users from increased rates and unfairly requires residential customers to pay the entire cost of the program. The measure also precludes those residential customers who have already taken measures to promote energy efficiency in their home - or who have bought a recently built home (which would obviously represent the upper threshold of energy efficiency in a home)- from receiving any benefits from the new program, despite the requirement that they be required to pay for it. So not only does H.B. 1133 disproportionately impact residential customers versus commercial and industrial customers, it also disproportionately impacts residential customers who have proactively taken efficiency measures on their own.

If the legislature would like to raise the rates that natural gas customers pay in order to create new government-mandated programs, it needs to not unfairly penalize residential customers who are already suffering from expensive natural gas bills.

Accordingly, I have vetoed this bill.

Sincerely,