A federal appeals court on Monday rejected a lawsuit claiming that Colorado’s renewable energy standard violates the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit was brought by the Washington-based Energy & Environment Legal Institute, a free-market-oriented litigation group.
Colorado is requiring investor-owned utilities to get 30 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.
Because the electric grid that Colorado is tied to covers 11 states, EELI argued the renewable mandate limits out-of-state coal plants from selling electricity.
The three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. Judge Neil Gorsuch said in his decision that the standard did not meet the test of restraint of trade.
“It isn’t a price control statute, it doesn’t link prices paid in Colorado with those paid out of state, and it does not discriminate against out-of-staters,” Gorsuch wrote.
Gorsuch called EEL’s lawsuit “a novel lawmaking project we decline to take up on our own.”
