The Denver City Council will decide Monday whether to ask voters to raise energy taxes on businesses — a proposal that is meant to shrink the city’s carbon footprint and reduce its role in climate change.

The council vote comes just six weeks after five new members took office and is another testing ground as the new council pushes Mayor Michael Hancock toward faster action on progressive priorities.

The proposal, led by Council President Jolon Clark, would go to voters in November if approved by the council. However, businesses are lining up against the proposal, and Hancock and some council members are asking for a delay.

The tax on electricity and gas usage — expected to draw in about $35 million per year — would be used to pay for solar panels, electric vehicles and green workforce training for Denver businesses and residents. It also is meant to discourage energy use, pushing businesses to upgrade their buildings and find other savings.

“As a city, we have not acted with urgent and unprecedented action,” Clark said at a recent meeting. “… It will never be cheaper to act than it is to act now.”

Noah Kaufman, a research scholar at Columbia University’s SIPA Center on Global Energy Policy, briefly reviewed the proposal at the request of The Denver Post. It likely would result in “relatively small” behavioral changes, such as lowering energy usage, he wrote in an email. “I’d view this more as a revenue raising measure.”

Clark said the city needs the money fast. He estimates that it will take hundreds of millions or billions of dollars to retrofit the city for a low-carbon future, including by upgrading buildings and replacing gas automobiles.

He wants the council to act Monday; if they don’t, the question can’t go on the ballot until November 2020.

However, Hancock wrote in a letter that the proposals hadn’t had “a true community and stakeholder engagement process” to avoid “unintended consequences” and build support — the same argument the Denver Chamber of Commerce is making. Council members Robin Kniech, Kendra Black and Debbie Ortega also have tried unsuccessfully to delay the measure.

Clark already has lined up apparent support from seven of 13 council members, including all five new members. That’s enough to pass the measure. But if Hancock uses his veto power — which he has never done before — the council would have to come up with two more votes to overpower him.

“Could you do a tax, perhaps a less aggressive tax, coupled with other potential revenue streams to fund this? That has not been evaluated at all, and that’s something that we would be diving into,” Bob McDonald, executive director of the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment, said in an interview.

The council also is considering a separate bill to establish a climate-focused office that would report directly to the mayor. McDonald said moving the team outside of his department would be disruptive and cause delays, while Clark argues it would elevate climate priorities.

The city currently counts 13 staffers on its full-time climate team.

Under the proposal, restaurants, shops, factories and cannabis growers — to name a few — would pay based on the amount of energy they consume:

$0.006 per kilowatt-hour of energy.

$0.03 per therm of natural gas for commercial customers.

$0.015 per therm for industrial customers.

The average industrial customer could see their yearly bills increase by about $1,900, while the average commercial bill could increase almost $1,100 for the year, according to 2018 usage figures. But those are only averages, meaning the changes could be much smaller or larger, depending on energy needs.

Business groups immediately questioned the extra costs and the timing. For example, representatives from the Colorado Restaurant Association said it could break already-thin profit margins for restaurants, which use power-hungry freezers, fryers and more.

Businesses that use Xcel’s renewable energy program would be exempt from the tax. Clark’s proposal also mentions “a rebate for small businesses that face hardships,” but the bill itself doesn’t cement that tax break. Instead, it would have to be created by city officials later.

The Rocky Mountain Climate Organization predicts that Denver will see more than a month of 100-degree days a year by the end of the century if there isn’t significant global action on climate change.

Hancock declared last year that the city should cut its carbon emissions 80% by 2050, compared with 2005 levels. The city’s measurements have shown recent progress, thanks largely to better energy efficiency for buildings and Xcel’s conversion to renewable sources. The city also has launched a “benchmark” program that asks large building owners to measure their energy usage.

But the carbon footprint of the city’s automobiles has stayed stubbornly stable as new automobiles flood the city and drivers buy cheap gas and SUVs.

The use of natural gas for building heat also is a “major challenge,” according to city staff, in part because it’s so costly to replace. Overall, the rate of carbon reduction would have to accelerate significantly to get on pace for the new 2050 goal.

Hancock said his budget for next year will expand the city’s decarbonization work, and he has asked city staff to accelerate electric vehicle purchases and net-zero standards for city buildings. The city also will adopt a stricter, more recent version of the International Energy Conservation Code, and it will consider creating incentives for developers to stretch further.

City staff have been working for more than a year to fill out the next steps in the climate plan, and expect to have more details next year. On Monday, though, the council may try to force a quicker move.