CNN founder and billionaire philanthropist Ted Turner stopped in Denver Tuesday to join in a discussion with Governor Bill Ritter on energy policy and the environment. Turner expressed concern that Congress has failed to pass any significant legislation to address climate change and fossil-fuel consumption.

“That’s not good, and the prospects right now are not that good for anything significant happening in the foreseeable future,” Turner said in a conversation moderated by former Denver Broncos player and journalist Reggie Rivers at the Colorado Conservation Voters’ fall luncheon (via The Denver Post). One way to start breaking apart the political deadlock, Turner says, would be for states to craft their own policies, as Colorado has done with its renewable-energy standard.

Turner also mingled in Boulder yesterday with local notables like University of Colorado President Bruce Benson, as Turner celebrated the opening of a new outpost in his restaurant chain, Ted’s Montana Grill.

“We thought it was a natural,” says Turner, who has donated a couple “Ralphie” buffaloes used by CU as football mascots, reports the Daily Camera. “Our trademark is bison.”

Turner, America’s largest private landowner, with about two million acres, also received the 2010 Stegner Award from CU’s Center of the American West for his “entrepreneurial acumen, his unprecedented philanthropy, and his dedication to build unique alliances focused on land conservation and preservation.” Turner says he bought the land “so the bison would have a home.”