Colorado: Christine Scanlan

We've had a lot of fun over the past year or so with former Republican statehouse candidate Muhammad Ali Hasan, who well and truly earned the title we bestowed on him of "Master of the Terrible Press."

Having been the punchline of so many jokes, it would be unfair of us to ignore what Hasan said recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference--as the Colorado Independent reports:

No shoes were thrown, but Ali Hasan did put his foot in his mouth last week at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., baffling the arch-conservative crowd with some decidedly moderate views.

"The problem with Republicans and the conservative movement right now," he said, according to Sarah Posner in the American Prospect, "is we've identified the wrong enemy.

The biggest no-brainer piece of legislation the state’s 67th General Assembly will likely see this session, the Community Wildfire Protection Plan (or Senate Bill 1), easily passed out of the House Wednesday, even as its co-sponsor, Rep. Christine Scanlan (D-Dillon) headed to Washington seeking federal funds to combat the beetle-kill epidemic.

SB 1 directs the state forester to establish guidelines for communities in the wildland-urban interface to identify and mitigate fire hazards.

It’s not surprising that it’s moving on. What is surprising is that it’s taken some communities, surrounded by 2 million acres of dead and dying trees, this long to start planning. And that it takes the state Legislature to light a fire, so to speak, under some towns and counties.

The village of Lech, Austria uses biomass to heat 90 percent of its lodges and hotels. (Photo courtesy Brian Sipes)

Not to be outdone by its up-valley neighbor Vail, the mountain town of Avon, 10 miles to the west, is also considering building a wood gasification biomass power plant that would consume beetle-kill trees and provide hot-water heat and electricity throughout town.

The village of Lech, Austria uses biomass to heat 90 percent of its lodges and hotels. (Photo courtesy Brian Sipes)

Both cities are now on the hunt to capture renewable energy dollars from the federal stimulus package with innovative but proven technologies and a bevy of dead trees to fuel the projects.

A Democratic-led committee shot down a key pro-union bill Wednesday, leading some in organized labor to question whether some Democrats are turning their backs on workers.

Meanwhile, another pro- union measure could meet the same fate today.

Two Democrats joined with five Republicans on the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee to kill a bill that would require state contractors to pay prevailing wages on any public works project.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. John Soper, D-Thornton, said as Colorado launches road and energy projects, it must ensure that workers are paid enough to stimulate the economy.

Several witnesses, including Colorado State University-Pueblo business professor Kevin Duncan, said surveys show that states with such laws do not see a marked increase in project costs, mainly because higher-priced workers are more efficient.