SB12-180: Colorado Forest Energy Jobs Act

• Encourages Colorado State Forest Service to collaborate with U.S. Forest Service on forest stewardship agreements and Good Neighbor Authority projects to address wildfire risk and diseased/insect-killed timber in Colorado's four million acres of dead forest.

• Creates renewable energy enterprise areas (up to 15) in areas with high wildfire risk, post-fire erosion threats, or dead timber, with tax credits available for investments in woody biomass and forest products businesses.

• Extends funding for the "Advancing Colorado's Renewable Energy" (ACRE) program agricultural energy grants through fiscal year 2016-17 and prioritizes silviculture energy grant requests.

• Amends the renewable energy standard to encourage Public Utilities Commission to give priority credit multipliers to biomass from insect-killed or insect-diseased timber and other forest products.

• Creates a Colorado Thermal Energy Work Group to evaluate renewable thermal and cogeneration technologies, identify investment incentives, and explore development of a renewable energy credit market for thermal technologies.