Equipping Coloradans with facts is not partisan. It’s just common sense.
At the Common Sense Institute, the mission has always been clear: to provide data-driven, nonpartisan analysis of the major issues shaping Colorado’s future. CSI is at the forefront of important discussions concerning the future of free enterprise in Colorado and aims to have an impact on the issues that matter most to Coloradans.
It has done so for 15 years and will continue doing so.
On May 2, The Colorado Sun published an article on a recent Common Sense Institute report — “Costs of Colorado’s Environmental and Emission Reduction Targets Over 15 Years.” The Sun refers to CSI as a “conservative” organization and quotes various state and environmental organizations’ criticism of CSI’s findings. The article says CSI has “been critiqued for not disclosing donors or detailing the methodology” of its studies.
Common Sense Institute has a deep, abiding commitment to nonpartisanship and works with a politically diverse team.
CSI performs its studies with the assistance and direction of our bipartisan policy fellows, who span not only a wide swath of policy expertise areas but a wide range of political affiliations. Our fellows and previous fellows have worked across aisles, including an Obama appointee, an elected Democrat official, an elected Republican official, a leader who has worked for numerous Democrat governors, and the head of a beloved nonprofit serving underprivileged women.
It is accurate to say Common Sense Institute is a free enterprise-oriented organization, but that does not equate to a “conservative” organization. The Common Sense Institute focuses on the issues that matter most to Coloradans without consideration of party.
Further, Common Sense Institute is a 501(c)(3) organization funded by individuals, corporations and foundations. CSI earned a Guidestar Platinum Transparency Seal. GuideStar uses a system of four Seals — bronze, silver, gold and platinum — to indicate a level of transparency and completeness of an organization’s GuideStar profile.
CSI’s methodology on this report and all reports is transparent and accounted for.
The purpose of this study was to quantify the economic costs associated with Colorado’s aggressive environmental and emissions reduction policies. This study is a necessary addition to the public discourse around carbon emissions and environmental policies.
Much of the attention on them to date has focused on anticipated environmental benefits. There have been few comprehensive accountings of both the potential benefits and costs of the state’s energy policy. To the degree that organizations have tried in Colorado, they have typically focused on the potential upsides while ignoring the immediate costs. The cumulative economic costs in terms of GDP, personal income, job losses, and higher household and business expenses had not been comprehensively assessed.
This analysis represents a good-faith effort to provide Colorado policymakers, stakeholders and residents with a data-driven estimate of those costs, which have up to this point been largely ignored. Economic impact studies focusing on positive environmental impacts are speculative.
The economic impacts of cleaner air in Colorado, in the event that they can be calculated to any degree of certainty, would not be immediate, but sustained over several decades. The results of the Common Sense Institute’s study are both concrete and immediate.
To estimate the statewide economic impacts, the study employed the REMI PI+ model (Regional Economic Models, Inc.). This dynamic input-output and general equilibrium model is widely used by governments, universities and research institutions to assess the ripple effects of policy and market changes across local and regional economies. REMI allows for simulation of how changes in costs, employment, investment and other variables flow through an economy over time.
Losses in GDP, personal income and employment were determined using the following process: Projected increases in energy costs (natural gas and electricity) were modeled as increased costs of production and living. Price increases were input across relevant economic sectors. Businesses were modeled as reducing investment and employment due to higher operational costs.
The net effect of these impacts was simulated through REMI to estimate statewide losses in GDP, personal income and employment.
It is inaccurate to say that Common Sense Institute’s findings were not stringent or that our methodology was not clearly disclosed, in this or any of its reports.
CSI is proud to be engaged in the free market of ideas in the great state of Colorado. That conversation, though, should characterize it accurately.
Equipping Coloradans with facts is not partisan, it’s just common sense.
Kelly Caufield is the executive director of the Common Sense Institute, a free enterprise think tank based in Greenwood Village.
The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.
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