It’s Friday, January 3, 2025. The 2025 Colorado General Assembly will convene in 5 days.
These updates are curated from multiple news sources and designed to be a “choose-your-own-adventure.” Please read any coverage of interest and skip anything you deem to be irrelevant. Hyperlinks are provided to add additional context. With the 24/7 news-cycle I hope to keep us all in the loop on items we may want to know about or better understand. Please feel free to share if you think someone outside FGMC needs to be aware of this information.
Disclaimer – The news and articles contained within this update do not represent any political positions or policy opinions of Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher, LLP. This update is designed for informational purposes only.
It’s almost time for legislative session!
And as noted by my esteemed colleagues at The Sum & Substance, Colorado’s House and Senate leaders have announced the committee makeup for the 2025 legislative session, reflecting shifts in party control due to November’s election results.
I’ve reattached my 75th General Assembly Overview for anyone interested in a more detailed look. An updated version of this document will be shared next week after the Senate vacancies are filled.
The Colorado State House:
In the House, Republicans gained three seats, reducing Democrats’ supermajority to a 43-22 margin. Some highlights:
- As a result, Republicans will have more committee seats. House Speaker Julie McCluskie (D-Dillon) expanded four key committees—Business Affairs & Labor, Education, Finance, and Transportation, Housing & Local Government—from 11 members to 13.
- However, despite the increase, Democrats still hold a three-seat advantage on most committees and a five-seat lead on the Transportation committee.
- The biggest shift occurred in the House Judiciary Committee, where the Democratic advantage has decreased from 8-3 to 7-4. This committee is likely to consider bills related to tort law, including proposed changes to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act and a bill aimed at making deceptive trade practice lawsuits easier to file.
The Colorado State Senate:
In the Senate, Republicans and Democrats each gained and lost one seat, leaving Democrats with a 23-12 majority. Some highlights:
- In the Senate, Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez made several changes to committee compositions. He strengthened the Democratic advantage on the Judiciary Committee, increasing it from 3-2 to 5-2, after moderate Democrat Sen. Dylan Roberts of Frisco played a key role in blocking several major bills in recent years.
- Rodriguez also added two Democrats to the Senate Finance Committee, expanding their majority from 4-3 to 6-3.
- However, he reduced the Democratic edge on the Senate Appropriations Committee, shifting it from 6-3 to 4-3, and also trimmed the majority on the Business, Labor & Technology Committee from 5-2 to 4-3.
- Additionally, both Rodriguez and House Speaker Julie McCluskie appointed new committee chairs to replace those who were term-limited, chose not to seek re-election, or moved between chambers.
You can read more from the brilliant politico Ed Sealover here. And now…
Today’s Big Three Things-To-Know:
- An updated budget proposal from Governor Polis. Colorado Governor Jared Polis revised his 2025-26 budget, requesting $150 million to begin phasing in the new school finance formula, a $35 million increase from his previous proposal. This funding aims to ensure the formula is implemented over six years, rather than seven. The new formula, passed by lawmakers last year, will more equitably distribute state funding, especially benefiting rural and smaller districts. While the state faces a budget shortfall, Polis’ update follows a slight improvement in revenue forecasts. He maintained his plan to use a single-year student enrollment count, instead of a four-year average, for funding, a move criticized by some districts fearing it could hurt those losing students. Polis also added several budget amendments, including: $12 million for at-risk students, $10 million for Child Care Assistance, $30 million for school meals, $14.6 million for rural colleges, and $3.3 million for Universal Preschool programs.
- A Speakership retained – but not without drama. Incumbent Mike Johnson secured re-election as Speaker of the House on the first ballot, after President-elect Donald Trump pressured GOP holdouts to change their votes, giving the Louisiana Republican the slim majority needed to retain the gavel. Johnson’s narrow victory paves the way for Republicans to push ahead with an ambitious agenda for Trump’s second term, including tax cuts and border security. While Johnson managed to avoid a repeat of the GOP’s chaotic January 2023 speaker vote, the close tally highlighted how limited his political capital is within the party’s razor-thin majority. It also underscored how a small group of dissenters could disrupt the party’s legislative goals. “Working together, we have the potential to be one of the most consequential congresses in the history of this great nation,” Johnson said following his victory. The events leading up to the vote foreshadowed the tight coordination needed between Trump and Johnson to advance legislation and quell opposition, even though the GOP controls both the House and the White House. While Trump had been frustrated with Johnson’s handling of a short-term spending package last month, he praised the Speaker and dismissed any viable alternatives. Trump congratulated Johnson in a social media post after the vote, stating, “Mike will be a Great Speaker, and our Country will be the beneficiary.” At the same time, the House voted mostly along party lines to adopt a rules package that protects the newly reelected Speaker from a potential ouster. The new rules make it so that a vote on removing the speaker can only be brought if at least nine Republicans support what is called a “motion to vacate.”
- The Trump era of Congress begins. When Donald Trump was inaugurated president eight years ago, about 12% of House Republicans had taken office after his 2016 election. By the time he returns to the White House later this month, that number will surge to 68%, or 150 members, who were first elected after his victory. The Trump era has reshaped Congress. Among House Democrats, 125 of the 215 members (58%) were first elected after Trump’s first win. In total, 63% of the new Congress was elected during or after Trump’s presidency. The Senate has seen less turnover due to its six-year terms, but still, about a third of senators began their congressional careers after Trump’s 2016 election. This means a significant portion of Congress has never experienced a Washington without Trump’s influence, raising concerns among some lawmakers.
***Bonus Story – The U.S. Surgeon General wants cancer warnings on alcohol. Here’s why. Just in time for “Dry January,” the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is urging Congress to mandate health warning labels on alcohol products, informing consumers of the connection between alcohol consumption and cancer risk. In a new advisory, Murthy highlighted that drinking alcohol increases the risk of seven types of cancer. “Alcohol is the third leading preventable cause of cancer, after tobacco and obesity,” Murthy told NPR. “It’s responsible for about 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the U.S.” Murthy, who will leave office later this month, added during an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition that alcohol consumption is linked to breast, colorectal, esophagus, liver, mouth, throat, and larynx cancers.
***Bonus, Bonus Story – Watch the skies. The first major winter storm of the season is set to impact much of the country, bringing heavy snow and ice to millions of people from Nebraska to the nation’s capital over the weekend and into Monday. This storm could drop more than six inches of snow along a corridor stretching from northern Kansas to West Virginia, creating hazardous road conditions in some areas. As of Friday morning, winter storm warnings, watches, and advisories were in effect across hundreds of counties. The affected regions include southeastern Nebraska, southern Iowa, northern Missouri, south-central Illinois, south-central Indiana, southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southwestern Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Parts of Northern Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware, and southern New Jersey could also see six inches or more of snow, though amounts will depend on the storm’s track and whether snow mixes with sleet or freezing rain.
And now, more news…
Around the city…Denver-based Sherman & Howard combines with growing law firm.
Via DBJ, Sherman & Howard, a Denver-based law firm with more than 130 years of history in the city, officially completed its deal being acquired by Cincinnati-based Taft on Jan. 1.
“We anticipate that the transition will be very smooth for attorneys and staff, and our clients are the ones who will ultimately benefit the most from the combined deeper and more comprehensive services,” Stefan Stein, the former Sherman & Howard CEO, now Taft’s Mountain West chairman and Colorado partner-in-charge, said in a news release.
You can read more from Denver Business Journal here.
More from Denver…Denver’s minimum wage is now nearly $19 an hour.
From Axios, the minimum wage increased this month in both Denver and the state of Colorado.
An estimated 260,800 local employees will benefit from the pay bumps directly and indirectly, according to the Economic Policy Institute. As of Jan. 1, Colorado’s minimum wage rose from $14.42 to $14.81 per hour.
In Denver, hourly wages climbed to $18.81, up from $18.29 in 2024 — continuing a 2019 Denver City Council-approved plan to incrementally raise them from $12.85 in 2020. Other local governments also raised their minimum wages this year. Boulder County’s is $16.57 (up from $15.69), while Edgewater’s is $16.52 (up from $15.02).
You can read more from Axios here.
Around the metro…Homebuilding rose last year in Colorado Springs, but the housing market faces challenges in 2025.
According to Colorado Politics, Colorado Springs-area home construction rebounded in 2024 from the previous year, though one local builder labeled last year’s activity as just so-so, while uncertainty about mortgage rates and Trump administration policies on tariffs and immigration could pose challenges for the industry in 2025.
Building permits issued for the construction of single-family, detached homes mostly in the Springs and surrounding El Paso County totaled 2,463 last year, a 9% increase over 2,259 permits issued in 2023, according to the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department, the joint city-county agency that oversees residential and commercial construction in the area.
Those numbers on building permits, which are one measure of the health of the local housing market, don’t include townhomes, duplexes or condominiums.
You can read more from Colorado Politics here.
Around Colorado…US Fish and Wildlife Service offers reward for information on Colorado wolf’s death.
As reported by Colorado Politics, the US Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a reward for information regarding the killing of the male of the Copper Creek wolf pack.
The male, known as 2309-OR, was captured in Grand County on Aug. 30 and died on Sept. 3. He was found to be in poor condition. USFWS said a necropsy, which has not yet been released because the investigation is ongoing, revealed that a gunshot wound “initiated the poor condition of the wolf and ultimately led to the cause of death.”
Wolf 2309-OR was one of 10 wolves from Oregon, which came from packs with a history of killing livestock in that state, that were relocated to Colorado a year ago.
You can read more from Colorado Politics here and CPR here.
More from around the state…Rural Colorado communities still lack adequate behavioral health services. A new state-sponsored group will help.
According to The Colorado Sun, organizations like the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, the Colorado Farm Bureau, Colorado State University’s Colorado AgrAbility Project and the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration have been working to bring behavioral health options to rural communities through programs like AgWell, Colorado Agricultural Addiction and Mental Health Program and Buck the Trend.
Now more help has arrived, in the creation of an Ag Behavioral Work Group, which the Colorado Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday.
The group was formed through Senate Bill 55, which passed in 2024 and is scheduled for a sunset review in 2029. It is tasked with guiding an agricultural and rural behavioral health program within the Behavioral Health Administration, and will have a dedicated administration staff member who will serve as a liaison between the administration, the Colorado Department of Agriculture, behavioral health-care providers, rural community leaders, agricultural communities, and nonprofit organizations that serve agricultural communities, according to the bill.
You can read more from The Colorado Sun here.
On social justice…The thirty extremist groups still active in Colorado.
As reported by Westword, extremism is alive and well in Colorado, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Thirty extremist organizations were active throughout Colorado in 2023 — including thirteen hate groups and seventeen anti-government groups, the SPLC reveals in its most recent annual national report.
Ten of the groups operated statewide, according to the report. Twenty others were located in sixteen different cities and counties in Colorado. The only municipalities that housed multiple active extremist organizations were Colorado Springs, with four, and Johnstown, with two.
Nationwide, there were 1,430 active extremist organizations in 2023, according to the SPLC: 595 hate groups and 835 anti-government groups. Extremist organizations were present in all fifty states, though California had the most, at 117, and Mississippi had the least, at four. The state with the most groups per capita was Wyoming.
You can read more from Westword here.
In the upcoming session…An enormous amount for business to watch.
From my colleagues at The Sum & Substance, Colorado’s November legislative elections had minimal impact compared to national trends. Republicans gained three seats in the state House but still face a 21-seat deficit, while Democrats’ 23-12 Senate majority remains unchanged.
As the 75th General Assembly opens, there’s a renewed sense of urgency from various groups, including business associations, labor leaders, environmental advocates, and construction defect reform supporters. This shift is driven by national political changes and Colorado’s declining economic competitiveness.
Some familiar debates are expected to resurface, such as revisiting the state’s Labor Peace Act for the first time since 2007, discussing rules around construction defect lawsuits to encourage condo building, and revisiting oil-and-gas regulations and lawsuit damages.
New economic pressures are also sparking fresh battles. The Colorado Chamber of Commerce is leading a push for regulatory reform, the Colorado Hospital Association is working to protect drug pricing discounts amid industry challenges, and technology leaders are seeking to regulate artificial intelligence in a way that supports Colorado’s growth in the tech sector.
You can read more from The Sum & Substance here.
From the State Capitol…Task force proposes sweeping reforms to Colorado’s child abuse laws in wake of 7-year-old’s death.
Via The Denver Post, a statewide task force on Friday called for a sweeping overhaul of Colorado’s system for reporting suspected child abuse and neglect, proposing myriad reforms aimed at clarifying the oft-misunderstood and sometimes misused process.
Colorado lawmakers created the task force in 2022 to examine the state’s mandatory reporting laws following a Denver Post investigation into the 2017 death of 7-year-old Olivia Gant, a long-term patient at Children’s Hospital Colorado.
Before Olivia died, some of her caregivers at the hospital suspected Olivia’s mother may have been medically abusing her, but the hospital did not alert any outside authorities to their suspicions until after Olivia’s death, despite the state’s mandatory reporting laws, which require some professionals to “immediately” report suspected child abuse or neglect to state authorities.
Instead, the hospital investigated the concerns internally, through its own child protection team and in a series of ethics meetings, relying in part on false information provided by Olivia’s mother to conclude there was no reason to alert outside authorities to the potential abuse.
You can read more from The Denver Post here.
From the Gold Dome…Revised Polis budget plan would keep new school funding formula on track for 6-year phase-in period
As reported by Chalkbeat, Colorado’s new school finance formula got some good news Thursday when Gov. Jared Polis changed course on his budget request for the upcoming year.
In his updated request for the 2025-26 budget, Polis asked lawmakers for $150 million to start phasing in funding for the new formula. That’s a $35 million increase from the budget the governor proposed in November, and would put the formula on track to be phased in over six years.
Lawmakers passed the new formula last year. The formula will more equitably distribute state funding based on the types of students districts teach, and help rural and smaller districts.
You can read more from Chalkbeat here.
From Colorado elections…Phil Weiser’s campaign for Colorado governor raises $155,000
According to Colorado Politics, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said his gubernatorial campaign raised more than $155,000 a day after launching his campaign.
Weiser announced his candidacy for governor on Thursday. It’s customary for candidates to unveil their fundraising numbers shortly after announcing their campaign for elected office.
The Weiser campaign also announced its leadership team, including campaign co-chairs Jeni Arndt, Mayor of Fort Collins; Omar Montgomery, a former Aurora mayoral candidate; Meg Porfido, a former chief of staff for the governor’s officel; and Ed Perlmutter, a former congressman.
You can read more from Colorado Politics here.
Around the country…Colorado Springs man shot himself just before bomb detonated in New Year’s Las Vegas Cybertruck attack.
Via CPR, federal and Nevada authorities said a Colorado Springs man shot himself just before a bomb detonated outside a Las Vegas Trump hotel, injuring seven others but doing little additional damage.
Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill confirmed that Master Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger, 37, who was on leave from the U.S. Army and had been living in Colorado Springs, was killed either by the gunshot or in the blast and was responsible for both.
But the motive for the New Year’s Day bombing, and whether there was any coordination between the Las Vegas event and an earlier mass killing in New Orleans by another veteran remain a mystery. Federal officials said Thursday that they haven’t found any connection to domestic or overseas terrorist groups in the “global” investigation.
You can read more from CPR here.
More from around the country…Corporate Transparency Act business-ownership reporting deadline delayed
As reported by DBJ, millions of small-business owners have received another reprieve amid see-sawing court decisions over a requirement to report ownership information to the Treasury Department.
A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in early December issued a nationwide injunction to stay a Jan. 1, 2025, deadline for businesses to report ownership information, a rule issued as part of the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act. But a subsequent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit overturned that injunction, which restored the requirement. Then, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) — part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury — updated the Jan. 1, 2025, deadline to Jan. 13, 2025.
But a separate panel of judges on the Fifth Circuit recently overturned the previous decision that lifted the injunction — which, once again, halts implementation of the rule. FinCEN subsequently sent out an alert Dec. 27 notifying businesses the deadline was officially lifted once more.
You can read more from the Denver Business Journal here.
From Congress…Mike Johnson wins Speaker vote after Trump twists arms.
Via The Wall Street Journal, incumbent Mike Johnson won re-election as speaker of the House on the first ballot, after President-elect Donald Trump pressured GOP holdouts to change their votes, handing the Louisiana Republican the narrow majority needed to claim the gavel.
Johnson’s dramatic victory clears the way for Republicans to charge headlong into Trump’s second term, taking on an ambitious agenda of tax cuts and border security. While Johnson avoided a repeat of the GOP’s calamitous January 2023 speaker vote, the tally underscored how little room he has to maneuver with the party’s razor-thin margin. It also showed the power of any small group of dissidents to derail the party’s plans.
“Working together, we have the potential to be one of the most consequential congresses in the history of this great nation,” Johnson said.
You can read more from WSJ here and NYT here.
More on that…House approves new rules protecting Mike Johnson from ouster.
As reported by Axios, the House voted mostly along party lines Friday to adopt a rules package that protects newly reelected Speaker Mike Johnson from a potential ouster.
The new rules make it so that a vote on removing the speaker can only be brought if at least nine Republicans support what is called a “motion to vacate.” That is a significantly higher bar than in the 118th Congress when any single member in either party could force such a motion.
The tool was used to remove former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in October 2023. Johnson faced an unsuccessful ouster attempt in April. House Democrats have railed against the change, noting that for the first time in U.S. history the minority party would be restricted from introducing a motion to vacate.
You can read more from Axios here.
From Washington DC…Biden blocks deal to sell U.S. Steel, saying it should be domestically owned and operated.
According to Colorado Newsline, President Joe Biden announced early Friday he will block the sale of U.S. Steel to the Japanese company Nippon Steel, in one of the last acts of his presidency.
Biden had said that U.S. Steel should remain a domestically owned and operated company, so the order was not a surprise. The White House in December called for “serious scrutiny” of the $14.1 billion deal, which was under review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an executive branch body.
“We need major U.S. companies representing the major share of US steelmaking capacity to keep leading the fight on behalf of America’s national interests,” Biden said in a Friday statement. “As a committee of national security and trade experts across the executive branch determined, this acquisition would place one of America’s largest steel producers under foreign control and create risk for our national security and our critical supply chains.
You can read more from Colorado Newsline here and Roll Call here.
Also from Washington DC…The Trump era of Congress begins, with a majority in House arriving since 2016.
As reported by Roll Call, when Donald Trump was sworn in as president eight years ago, about 12 percent of House Republicans had first taken office after his election in 2016.
When the president-elect returns to the White House later this month, that percentage of House Republicans will have grown to a staggering 68 percent, or 150 members who were first seated after his first election win or later.
Welcome to the Trump era of Congress.
These figures extend to House Democrats as well: 125, or 58 percent, of the party’s 215 members for the new Congress were first seated after Trump first won the presidency. Taken together, 63 percent of representatives were first elected with Trump in 2016 or in the years since.
The Senate’s turnover is also notable, though not nearly as high given that the chamber’s six-year terms tend to reduce the impact any president could have on senators’ electoral prospects. And a number of senators began their congressional careers in the House. In total, about a third of Senate members first came to Congress after Trump’s initial election.
What that means is a substantial portion of Congress doesn’t know a version of Washington without the influence of Trump. And that’s a concern for some lawmakers. “If you look at the history of the institution, the average service now amounts to less than nine years,” said Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the longest-serving woman in Congress. “That isn’t good for the country. Why is that? Because progress at the federal level moves slowly.”
Trump’s longevity is unique. He’s approaching a decade as the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, which also chips away at the Senate’s comparative resistance to broad-spanning change.
You can read more from Roll Call here.
From the courts…Judge upholds Trump’s conviction but signals no jail time.
According to The New York Times, a New York judge on Friday upheld President-elect Donald J. Trump’s felony conviction but signaled that he was inclined to spare him any punishment, a striking development in a case that had spotlighted an array of criminal acts and imperiled the former and future president’s freedom.
The judge, Juan M. Merchan, indicated that he favored a so-called unconditional discharge of Trump’s sentence, a rare and lenient alternative to jail or probation. He set a sentencing date of Jan. 10, and ordered Trump to appear either in person or virtually.
An unconditional discharge would cement Trump’s status as a felon just weeks before his inauguration — he would be the first to carry that dubious designation into the presidency — even as it would water down the consequences for his crimes.
You can read more from NYT here.
From the Trump Administration…Trump announces new Treasury and ambassador nominees.
Via The Hill, President-elect Trump announced several appointments for his Treasury Department and choices for ambassadors for two European countries.
In multiple Thursday Truth Social posts, Trump outlined who will work alongside his Treasury chief Scott Bessent, along with his picks for ambassadors to Spain and to the Netherlands.
Trump picked Ken Kies to work as the assistant secretary for tax policy. Kies, a tax lawyer with nearly five decades of experience, served as chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation in Congress.
Trump chose Alexandra Preate to be the next senior counsel to Bessent. Trump said Preate has worked “closely with former Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Kudlow, as well as my long-time economic advisors, Dr. Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore.” For the director of policy planning, he selected Hunter McMaster. Trump chose Daniel Katz, a senior fellow at the conservative think-tank Manhattan Institute, to be the department’s chief of staff. Katz previously served as a senior adviser at the Department of the Treasury.
You can read more from The Hill here.
Watch the weather…The first major winter storm of the season will bring heavy snow and ice to millions.
From WaPo, the first significant winter storm of the season for much of the country will bring a swath of heavy snow and ice to millions of people from Nebraska to the nation’s capital over the weekend into Monday.
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More than six inches of snow could fall in a corridor from northern Kansas to West Virginia and could lead to dangerous road conditions in some spots. As of early Friday, winter storm warnings, watches and advisories covered hundreds of counties. The affected stretch includes southeastern Nebraska, southern Iowa, northern Missouri, south-central Illinois, south-central Indiana, southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Up to around six inches or more of snow may also fall in parts of Northern Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware and southern New Jersey. Exactly how much falls in the region depends on the storm track and whether the snow mixes with sleet and freezing rain.
You can read more from The Washington Post here.
In public health news…Surgeon General calls for new label on drinks to warn Americans of alcohol’s cancer risk.
Via The Associated Press, alcohol is a leading cause of cancer, a risk that should be clearly labeled on drinks Americans consume, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy proposed on Friday.
Murthy’s advisory comes as research and evidence mounts about the bad effects that alcohol has on human health, but his proposal for a label would require a rare approval from the U.S. Congress.
Americans should be better informed about the link between alcohol and cancer, in particular, Murthy argues in his advisory, noting alcohol consumption is to blame for nearly one million preventable cancer cases in the U.S. over the last decade. About 20,000 people die every year from those alcohol-related cancer cases, according to his advisory.
You can read more from AP here and NPR here.
Also in public health…Tuberculosis rates plunge when families living in poverty get a monthly cash payout.
According to NPR, what if the best medicine isn’t a pill or vaccine — but it’s cold cash?
There’s a growing body of research that suggests economic programs that give money to very poor people can have major health benefits. Now, a new study — out on Friday in Nature Medicine — proves this approach can work when it comes to the world’s deadliest infectious disease: tuberculosis, which killed more than 1.25 million people in 2023.
The study is impressive in its scale. Researchers combined two Brazilian datasets — one from the Ministry of Health and one that tracks social programs for the poorest half of the population — enabling them to zero in on 54 million people in Brazil living in poverty. In this group, 44% of them received cash each month from a government program while 56% did not. The families that received the cash were significantly less likely to contract TB. Among the extremely poor in this category, TB cases and deaths dropped by more than 50% and in the Indigenous population the drop was even more dramatic: more than 60%.
You can read more from NPR here.
And from around the globe…China approves the world’s most expensive infrastructure project.
Via The Economist, it is sometimes called the “Everest of rivers” owing to its extreme topography. One section of the Yarlung Tsangpo falls 2,000meterss over a stretch of 50km (31 miles). But what interests Chinese officials is the river’s hydropower potential. On December 25th Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported that China had approved plans to build the world’s largest hydroelectric dam on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Tsangpo, which flows from Tibet into India and Bangladesh (see map).
The dam could generate 300bn kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, according to official estimates. That is enough to meet the needs of more than 300m people and more than triple the capacity of the Three Gorges dam, which is currently the world’s largest. The government hopes the new dam will help China eliminate net emissions of greenhouse gases (or become “carbon neutral”) by 2060. But the project faces many challenges.
You can read more from The Economist here.
That’s all for this week. Have a wonderful weekend!
Best,
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Adam J. Burg
Senior Policy Advisor |
| Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher, LLP
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