 Welcome to another edition of Rational Politics. I'm joined today at the table by Tracy Burnett, who happens to be in the house down in Denver. Tracy, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Now, I'll tell you a little bit about myself. You know, I'm a mom, an engineer, an entrepreneur, a world-class runner and a lifelong Democrat. And before getting into this craziness of politics, I worked in construction and alternative energy, aerospace defense and the computer industry. And, yeah, then decided to do this crazy stuff. Right now, I represent House District 12, which is Lafayette, Louisville, and Longmont. But with the redistricting that we just went through, we'll pick up Superior, Niwot, and parts of unincorporated Boulder County. But I will lose Longmont. What we're here to talk about today is the environment. I mean, it's probably the most urgent pressing issues that we have globally. So let's talk a little bit about HB 1362, which is a bill that you are pushing through the house. Where do we stand on that? Well, it's past the House, it's past the Senate, and the governor will be signing it any time soon. Perfect. It is... Okay, so the reason I got into politics is because of the climate crisis. And buildings are the hardest nut to crack in terms of decarbonizing and getting to a fossil-free future. And so what the 1362 does is it sets minimum energy codes for buildings, for both residents and for, you know, commercial buildings. And, you know, I love this bill because what it really does is it builds right the first time by building more energy-efficient buildings. You know, think about insulation. And, you know, if you have a more tightly insulated house, you're going to spend less on utilities. And so in 50% of the way we're going to get to a fossil-free future is through energy efficiency. But this bill goes beyond this. This is really groundbreaking in that it builds for the future. It builds for the future by being electric vehicle, solar-ready, and heat-pump-ready, so that over time, you know, people spend, you know, their biggest investment is buildings. And, you know, in the future, the more that people realize that, hey, I want an electric vehicle or, geez, you know, I'm finding out that I really don't want a gas stove in my house because of the indoor air pollution. So what this bill does is it just simply makes it easier to convert to fossil-free appliances. You don't have to rip out your wiring. You don't have to rip out walls. It's building right the first time and saving people lots of money in the process. Right. Now, the big problem that I see with this energy code board has put together is that there are actually very few states that it would actually work in because the state has got to be basically on their own, standing alone, generating power from all other means other than fossil fuel. Yeah. Well, you know, in Colorado, this is good because by 2030, 80% of our electric grid will be fossil-free. I mean, we're going to get it. The big thing right now is getting rid of coal-fired plants and they're being shut down. So, yeah, so this is where it's really going to work, is in Colorado. Right. And we've already done a lot of work in that area. Basically, where in Colorado are the wind farms? Now, I did notice one way out on the northeast corner of the state when I was driving home once. We seemed a little bit far away from population. Yeah. There are a lot of wind farms out on the east. And, you know, you have to be careful about, you know, the cost of transmission lines. But, you know, wind farms are not the only way that we're going to get to a fossil-free electric grid. A lot of it is solar. We have more solar power capacity here in Colorado. We can power, I believe, I think we can power the entire United States with the amount of capacity we have for solar power right here in Colorado. So, but one of the bills that is also going to be signed by the governor is a microgrid romance bill. And what that is, is a microgrid is typically solar panels in a battery backup. Those solar panels generate electricity. They can add to the grid. The battery backup is there in case the grid goes down. And my microgrid roadmap is, it's really strategic in that it's saying how can we improve the grid resiliency and reliability of our electric grid by using microgrids. And so one of the unique things about this bill is that there are other microgrid roadmaps out there. You can use microgrids to power a building, to power a campus, to power an entire community. Even the military installations are using them now. But when I was back in New York City in 2012, I was going to run the marathon. And instead, Hurricane Sandy hit. And half of Lower Manhattan was flooded. And you think about hospitals. They use usually diesel generators as backup. Well, their basements were flooded and they couldn't get fuel trucks there. And so, you know, microgrids are another way to keep those critical facilities up and running. And one of the other things I learned is that you think about critical facilities. What are they? You think about hospitals or police stations. But what we learned are things like grocery stores and community centers. So what my microgrid road map does, it has a conversation with stakeholders and communities throughout Colorado in deciding what are critical facilities in a small rural community that might be a school. In the Marshall Fire, which is my district, the local YMCA became an evacuation center. That's a critical facility. Absolutely. So what are those critical facilities? And what are those areas of Colorado that are more susceptible to grid disruption because of a wildfire, or they just don't have reliable service? So what my microgrid build does is says, okay, what are those critical facilities? What are those critical areas? How do we use microgrids to improve the grid reliability and resiliency? And then how do we foster that? What are the legal barriers? What are the regulatory barriers? What can we do to foster that? Right. I guess I'm what classifies a microgrid because I have solar on my house. But what I don't have is the battery storage facility. But what I will say is that every year I have received a check back for over usage, but yumping more power out than actually taking in. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to put the battery back up in there. It was just going to be too expensive. But at least it's a little bit to help. Am I ever going to see a return on my money? No. I'm going to be dead and buried before that happens. However, environmentally it was the correct thing to do. And I'm really happy about it. How about yourself? Do you have solar? Oh my goodness. We've had 7 kilowatts on our roof for over 10 years. We've been net zero for 10 years, even with all my LED Christmas lights. And my husband has an electric MG midget that he converted. An electric MG midget. I'm sorry, that is sacrilege. I'm going to have to talk to your husband about this. Oh, it's a cute little vehicle. But then when I got my electric vehicle, we needed a little bit more power. So we added another 5 kilowatts of ground mounts. So the cool thing, and this is coming, you're right, battery technology is expensive, but it's coming down quickly. Even 10 years ago, who would have thought that solar plus battery backup is the least expensive utility grade electric generation? 10 years ago. So it's coming down. And so what I'm excited about, and this is something that I'd like the microgrid roadmap to start exploring, is that our electric vehicles are batteries on wheels. Right. And that technology is coming to be able to have your solar panels and your electric vehicle become your microgrid. Right. In fact, this year we, Colorado, is funding a whole bunch of electric buses. And in fact, I got to ride on one here in Boulder County recently. Those buses are batteries on wheels. Yes. And so they drive them during the day, but if there were to be an issue and they needed the battery backup, they've got batteries on wheels all set to go. Right. See, the funny thing is when I was living, I left England in 81 to let you know. But when I was living in England, we used to have a whole load of tram buses. But they all ran from the overhead cables. And for some strange reason, back in sort of like the early 80s, they ripped all that out and they put in diesel buses and they're now regretting their decision. Big time. You're so right because the pollution, I mean, the pollution, the, you know, the noxies and the voxies that create our big ozone problem right here in the front range. Yeah, we need to fix that. What do you say about the fact that a lot of people are, they pull back a lot as soon as you say alternative energy? Do you have an argument to convince them that, you know what, climate change has happened, not is happening, has happened, what would you say to them? Well, I think that we've seen this, the floods in 2013 that hit Boulder County. One of my friends nearly died in that flood when the St. Rain River jumped its banks a half a mile and cut a path right through her house, nearly killing her. And then you look at the Marshall fire and you think, we used to think, oh, wildfires are only in the mountains. And we realized no one, no one is immune to climate disasters. It is, the climate is changing. I mean, the Marshall fire, excuse me, the Marshall fire was almost like the movie Perfect Storm. Every, to make it a total disaster, every element was in place. Wind blowing to the east, massive amount of uncut grass, hay, straw, whatever. You got it. And it just took off. Yeah, absolutely. So when people say alternative energy, I think people think, well, you know, it's only gonna, alternative energy means that it's not reliable. And I think what we're finding, again, I think back to the micro grids, the military, the U.S. military is using micro grids because they provide more reliability. Like they do not need fuel trucks to refuel their diesel generators. They can supplement what's already out there. There's remote communities in Alaska that use micro grids. So I think it's changing people's ideas about what is this. I think some people are worried that, well, they're worried about jobs. And I think that the jobs in energy efficiency and in renewable energy, those are good paying jobs. And so what's key to me is that we bring along everybody on this path to a fossil-free future. And I talk to people who are in the oil and gas industry and say, look, you know, these pipelines and things like these, these pipelines that you are maintaining, you can use, like, clean heat that uses steam and pipes to generate, to clean heat. So there are jobs. And we're talking to labor all the time about how we can do this. So I think it's just getting people familiar with this whole idea. You know, and I think about things like, you know, I like my gas-powered vehicle. I think the more people realize that my electric vehicle, which I drive 10,000 miles a year, and I charge it at night at off hours, it costs me $100 a year to fuel. Who wouldn't want to not go around spending, you know, your time driving around trying to find the best gas price, especially with a, you know, a war halfway around the world. I also think, I've talked a little bit about indoor air quality. The more people learn about the health impacts, the negative health impacts of using gas appliances in their homes, they're going to think twice about it. I learned just recently that gas appliances emit nitrogen dioxide and particle matter and carbon monoxide. And these can cause asthma, they can hurt, you know, exacerbate asthma. In fact, kids who live in a home that uses gas appliances have a 42% increased risk of getting asthma. And if you boil water on a gas appliance, that the pollutants that are emitted would violate the Environmental Protection Agency's outdoor air quality. Really? Yeah. Yes, I mean, people are learning that. This is why my Building Energy Codes bill is so important. So, okay, this is my prediction. In the next five to 10 years, people think of gas appliances as they now think of lead paint in buildings and they'll want to get rid of them. It's not everybody. You know, this is Colorado. We have a choice. We all make choices. But I think people will want to convert to an electric stove or a heat pump instead of a gas furnace. And my Electric Codes bill, I mean my Energy Codes bill, allows you to do that in a way that will save you money and you don't have to rip things out on your most important vessel. Right. I have a heat pump when I lived in Alabama on the house and they really work. It quite surprised me at just how good they are. Yes. They are amazing. Europe and Japan, they've used them forever. Yes. And, you know, think about it. You don't have to have a gas line from the house, from the street to the house. That's correct. In the house, you know, in through the house. In fact, this is one of the things with, again, my district is Marshall Fire. And so we're looking how do we rebuild and how do we rebuild smarter and more efficient and cleaner and all those kind of things. And it's actually, it costs less to build an all-electric home from the ground up right now because you do not have those gas lines in there. Right. And it costs less to run them. I'm going to hang my head with shame. I have a gas stove. Are you going to get rid of it now? No. I hate cooking on electricity. I hate it. Oh, have you gotten an induction stove? I've tried induction stoves, but they typically induction stoves come with a really thick, heavy glass plate on top of the stove. When I turn something down, I want it turned down. I don't want to have to wait half an hour. All right. You had an old induction stove because we re-remodeled our kitchen a couple of years ago. And I went into three different appliance stores and said, okay, this is before I knew that gas stoves are so unhealthy. I have asthma. Okay. Before that. And I said, okay, give me the sales job on induction versus gas. And they all said induction. It took half the amount of time to boil a little cup of water and you can turn it down immediately and you can buy the pots and pans induction ready. I bought mine at Target. This is not an advertisement for Target, but I don't like to spend a lot of money on my cookware and I bought it at Target. And actually, finally, when you were talking about heating a home, do you know who first heated homes by running steam under the floors? Was it New York City or Boston? No, it was the Romans. They discovered this in the UK because they were wondering why are the floors raised two feet above normal ground level and then they discovered that's how they were heating their homes. And this is coming around again. I was down at Denver University. They're going to heat their whole campus by doing this. And especially if you look at, you know, how much money we all spend on air conditioning units. You know, heat pump is not only the heat, it also is the cool. So if you're thinking of, you know, if air conditioner goes out and your furnace is kind of old, consider getting a heat pump. I do have air conditioning at home, but I got a swamp cooler. Mm-hmm. For the foot, let's see, I had it installed, what, five years ago when I was having the boiler replaced and I decided I'd put in air conditioning just as a backup. I had to use it for the very first time this year because of how warm April was for those opening two weeks before we had our fifth winter. Yes, yes, exactly. For my husband and me, we're looking at making our home more energy efficient. Yes. Because that's, you know, you need to eat your energy efficient vegetables before you can do those other things. Absolutely. We probably should think about finishing this up now. Okay. Do you have any last words that you'd like to say to people about why you need to understand that climate change is destroying the earth? Oh, what? Well, I think climate change, it's impacting everybody. Think about last year when we had wildfires caused by climate change. Wildfires in California that were caused by climate change. And we had, you know, we had, you know, poor air quality. This is affecting everybody. And there's three things we need to do to address climate change. One of them, stop burning fossil fuels and help everybody on that path to a fossil free future. The second thing we need to do is climate change is happening right now. So we need to build in more resilience. And the third thing we need to do, and this is another area I'm investigating, is there's already too much carbon in the air. We need to pull carbon that already exists in the air out. And they have very efficient ways of doing that now, don't they? I'm learning about it. It's everything from better agricultural practices to, oh, there's just many different things. Hemp, hemp can sequester carbon and can be used in construction materials. You know, Colorado is a place where, you know, hemp grows actually quite well. Yes. And so this is another area that I'm looking into. Excellent, excellent. Tracy, thank you so much for joining me at the table. This has been a fascinating little conversation about the environment, about me having the wrong stove, you not having a swamp cooler. But other than that, everything is good. Oh, good. Okay. We'll continue to be friends. Yes. I do hope you'll enjoy yourself. Yeah. Yeah, this was fun. This was really fun. This was great. Anyway, thank you so much. And I'd love to get you back in the studio, even though Longmont is leaving your district. Everybody, thank you so much for watching this show. You need to get environmentally friendly out there because this climate needs every little bit of help you can give it. You know, simple things. If you've got a garden, plant a bush, plant a tree, plant something that helps because every little bit does help. Swamp coolers, they are super efficient here in Colorado. Heat pumps, super efficient here in Colorado. There are ways around this. There are things that we can do, but only you can do it. I'm Nigel Aves, your host. Thank you so much for watching the show. Signing off for now, another Rational Politics. Thank you.