With the outset of a new presidential administration and Congress in Washington, DC, states are likely to be deferred to more, and Colorado intends to take the ball and run with it, especially when it comes to natural gas and clean energy, Gov. John Hickenlooper said Thursday.

Hickenlooper said it is clear that the Trump administration and Congress will “seek a different relationship between the federal government and the states.”

“In the coming years, we expect more responsibility to be directed our way,” Hickenlooper said, quoting early 20th Century Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ observation that states are the “laboratories of democracy.”

Entering the last two years of an eight-year run in the governor’s office, Hickenlooper said Colorado has a roaring “economic engine” that has seen more than 400,000 jobs created in the past six years. Part of the key is continuing to partner with the state’s many rural economies on a bipartisan basis.

“We’ve tripled the amounts of energy we get from wind and the sun in recent years,” Hickenlooper said. “The cost of these technologies is dropping like a rock, and the clean energy sector provides more than 60,000 jobs in Colorado.”

The state has protected thousands of acres of open lands and rivers while Colorado has become “one of the best states in the country for natural gas production,” Hickenlooper said.

“We have put the energy needs and costs of hard-working Coloradans before any special interest agenda or false promises,” he said.