New Energy Regulations Being Challenged
As you’re probably aware by now, the State of Colorado and the City of Denver through erroneous regulations and benchmarking are effectively outlawing natural gas in buildings over 50,000 square feet (State) and 25,000 square feet (Denver). This will impact an estimated 8,000 buildings in Colorado, including hundreds of AAMD member buildings. Conversion over the next few years to electricity will be extremely costly and disruptive; but only have an estimated .0007% impact on our global climate if 100% successful!
AAMD and CAA took serious action against these rulings & regulations, and have strategically placed our organization to fight these battles in State and Federal Court. AAMD and CAA have already invested over $175,000 through our legal team of Greenberg Traurig to be formal participants in the rulemaking process. AAMD & CAA have set the foundation to have legal standing to litigate these new requirements. We anticipate the next phase of the litigation (suits requesting injunctive relief in federal and state district courts) process will exceed a million dollars. When weighed against the potential conversion costs currently estimated between $6-8 BILLION – clearly this is too important of an issue not to implement the lawsuit.
The AAMD Board of Directors, the CAA Board of Directors, our Joint Legislative Advisory Council, and the AAMD Alliance – (ALL 4 governing groups) voted to approve a member financial assessment schedule to help fund this important litigation. Members with buildings greater than 25,000 ft.² in Denver are being asked to contribute $1,250 towards the Association's million dollar litigation fund. Members with buildings greater than 50,000 ft.² outside of Denver are being asked to contribute $2.500. These contributions are a tiny fraction of the cost of either compliance with or independent litigation of these burdensome regulatory requirements.
Beyond financial support, we’re hopeful that you or someone within your company, would have some experience on the issues of conversion costs, time frames, negative impacts on residents and impracticality of conversion projects. We ask each of you to think through and possibly identify an individual to help tell the story of how costly conversion from natural gas will be.
Finally, we are engaging a professional fundraising group to reach out to the many other industries that are negatively impacted by these regulations. We hope to reduce the portion of the burden of the cost of litigation to keep it from falling solely on multifamily rental housing. However, regardless of what other industries step up to answer the call, it is clear that if we don’t pursue these legal avenues, others will sleep until it’s too late.
Click here for important information and an outline of the facts regarding these regulations.