According to Regional Sustainability Manager Jonathan Koehn, Boulder, CO gets 70% of its electricity from the burning of coal. Unsatisfied with this fact, the City has adopted one of the more aggressive Climate Action Plans in the nation to mitigate carbon emissions, and created a dedicated funding stream for its implementation through a pioneering financing policy.
In 2006, Boulder instituted a “carbon tax” on the use of electricity generated from fossil fuels—the first policy of its kind in the U.S.