By Vincent Carroll

Rocky Mountain News

Just two months ago, Gov. Bill Ritter's latest appointee to the three-member Public Utilities Commission dismissed fossil fuels from any role in meeting Colorado's future energy needs.

"We think it's totally doable to meet the (future) demand through an investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy," Matt Baker said.

Baker, the executive director of Environment Colorado, had been making similar statements for years - telling Westword in 2005, for example, that his group agreed to a settlement giving the green light to construction of Xcel's Comanche 3 coal plant in Pueblo only because "this would be the last coal plant."

At his Senate confirmation hearing Monday, however, the crusading activist was nowhere in sight. Coal has a bright future, a mellow Baker declared, sounding for the all the world like an open-minded pragmatist....

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