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Smokescreen: Years of internal complaints suggest air agency’s favoritism toward polluters
At the pediatric clinic where Dr. Sheela Mahnke sees her young patients in Thornton, 85% of the families who walk through the door are on Medicaid. Many come from the predominantly low-income and Latino neighborhoods in the north Denver area that have struggled with a long history of air and water pollution. And over the […]
Smokescreen: Are Colorado officials countering misinformation on smog — or hiding behind it?
The dozen or so speakers who testified in opposition to Colorado’s proposed Employee Traffic Reduction Program at an August hearing came from a variety of backgrounds. They made a variety of arguments. But there was one point that many of them repeated over and over again: They weren’t sure why the Air Quality Control Commission […]
Smokescreen: Who killed ETRP, Colorado’s traffic-reducing climate rule?
None of the members of Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission were happy with the decision that lay before them at their August 2021 hearing. Many were confused about what exactly it meant. But everyone seemed to agree on one thing: Rarely, if ever, had something like it happened before. “This is an extraordinary circumstance,” said […]
At Colorado’s tight-lipped air pollution agency, a ‘culture of fear’ prevails
Few Coloradans know the Air Pollution Control Division by name, but every time they take a breath of Rocky Mountain air, they’re impacted by the decisions it makes. A branch of the state health department with a staff of about 200, the APCD is tasked with overseeing Colorado air-quality policy and, increasingly, with leading many […]
Biden administration to move BLM headquarters back to D.C. from Grand Junction
President Joe Biden’s administration announced on Friday that it would return the headquarters of the Bureau of Land Management to Washington, D.C., reversing a controversial decision by the Trump administration — with the support of a bipartisan array of Colorado political leaders — to relocate the office to Grand Junction. The BLM’s Grand Junction office […]
Biden visits Colorado to pitch clean-energy spending in infrastructure, budget bills
Joe Biden made his first visit to Colorado as president on Tuesday, stopping at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden to pitch his administration’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis and accelerate the clean-energy transition. “We’re blinking code red as a nation,” Biden said in remarks delivered against a backdrop of solar panels and […]
2021 election guide: 13 measures face voters on Denver’s crowded ballot
Thanks to a multipart bond package, five citizen-initiated measures and a pair of civic reforms backed by City Council, Denver voters will have what election officials say is likely a record number of ballot questions to decide on this November. Hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure investments, high-stakes housing policies and the future of […]
Redistricting commission far from consensus on Colorado congressional map
After four days of public hearings on a newly proposed Colorado congressional map, members of the state’s first-of-its-kind Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission appeared far from a consensus on how best to move forward with the once-a-decade redistricting process. In a Friday afternoon meeting that ran more than 90 minutes over schedule, commissioners deliberated at length […]
Republican CU Regent Heidi Ganahl files to run for Colorado governor
It’s official: Colorado’s only remaining statewide elected Republican official will challenge Democratic Gov. Jared Polis in the 2022 governor’s race. Campaign representatives for Heidi Ganahl, an entrepreneur and at-large member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, filed paperwork early Friday with the Colorado secretary of state’s office to form her candidate committee, Heidi […]
Climate corps, forest funding backed by Colorado Democrats included in House budget bill
Two major conservation proposals backed by Colorado lawmakers are one step closer to passage after being included in the House of Representatives’ version of Democrats’ high-stakes budget bill. Rep. Joe Neguse’s plan for a new Climate Conservation Corps and Sen. Michael Bennet’s proposal to boost funding for forest-management and wildfire mitigation efforts are both included […]
Redistricting panel to hold hearings on newly proposed congressional map
Colorado’s Independent Congressional Redistricting Commission will hold a series of hearings this week to solicit feedback from the public on the first official draft of its plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Nonpartisan redistricting staff on Friday released the first of three “staff plans” for Colorado’s new congressional […]
Last-minute law shrinks property tax cut measure to a fraction of original size
Last-minute tax legislation passed by the Colorado General Assembly earlier this year would likely reduce by more than 90% the impact of a billion-dollar tax cut measure on the 2021 ballot, a Newsline analysis of state property valuation data shows. Initiative 27, backed by conservative group Colorado Rising State Action, was officially certified to appear […]