The backlog of overdue major air pollution permits at the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division has grown to 128, from 111 in 2022, despite tens of millions of dollars in state investment for expanded staff and new digital processing, records show.
State officials point to finishing a much larger number of permits each year during that time, and blame the bigger backlog on a flood of more than 100 new permit applications when Colorado was forced to permit many more sites as a consequence for ongoing violations of EPA ozone standards. They say the staff and processing expansion pushed by Gov. Jared Polis in 2022 shows 73 key Title V major polluter permits were finished in 2025, up from 13 in 2022.
Environmental watchdogs, though, say both the growing backlog and the accelerated individual permit reviews are missed opportunities for the state to actually cut deadly air pollution.
The division’s updates on backlogs and processing “just seems to be about them trying to figure out how better to serve polluters,” said Jeremy Nichols, who tracks the permitting system for the Center for Biological Diversity. “And where is the public in this? Where are people? Where are people’s concerns legitimately considered? There are no consequences for the delay on the renewals for the polluter. There are consequences for people who breathe air, who may be experiencing levels of air pollution that are not acceptable anymore.”
State officials should be using their power in the permitting process to require more effective technology in flaring of pollutants at oil and gas production sites, and real-time monitoring with rapid consequences for violations, Nichols said.
In 2022, Polis and the state health department asked the legislature for more than $40 million in new general fund spending to quickly beef up the air pollution division for greenhouse gas rules and new permit engineers, experts to model expected pollution, and other experts to monitor existing pollution.
State public health and environment director Jill Hunsaker Ryan said in an interview that years of staffing increases and training funded by the increase, alongside pending implementation of artificial intelligence-assisted permit writing, have greatly improved Colorado’s process.
“This administration has been trying to solve issues that go back decades, including permit backlogs, outdated technology, understaffing and underfunding. And we’ve made significant progress in solving for some of these long term issues, but we haven’t yet realized all of the potential of our investments,” Ryan said. “And while these investments have allowed us to catch up quite a bit and begin to tackle the permit backlog, we’ve also experienced federal ozone downgrades.”
The EPA downgrading the northern Front Range’s health-harming ozone violations from “serious” to “severe” in 2022 “resulted in over 100 new entities required to apply for a major permit, which is a good thing for air quality, but it puts additional pressure on our backlogs, because major air permits take a long time to write and get through the process,” Ryan said.
When the permit list blew up
The EPA’s downgrade consequences lowered the threshold of industrial uses requiring a permit to 25 tons of certain pollutants a year from 50 tons. Many of the new entities now requiring permits are oil and gas production pads, as exploration and production has increased in northeastern Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg Basin, from Weld County to suburban Aurora.
The air pollution division staff, Ryan noted, has also had to implement complex rules for each of 30 legislative bills on pollution passed from 2019 to 2025. On top of that, the Air Quality Control Commission and other state regulatory bodies have issued 80 rule revisions related to air quality standards in that time, Ryan said.
“Integrating this level of new policies is again, good for air quality, but it takes time, and it adds a lot of complexity to the permitting process,” she said.
The air pollution division does not have to wait for a permit rewrite to tighten limits on pollution, said division director Michael Ogletree. Each time a new rule is finalized adding caps or monitoring for polluters, those new requirements apply across a wide array of emission sources, he said.
Representatives from Colorado’s oil and gas industry, which now produces the fourth-largest amount of petroleum among U.S. states, said they appreciate the state’s effort to “modernize and streamline” permitting.
“Permitting timelines at the Air Pollution Control Division have grown in proportion to the additional layers of regulation that contribute to Colorado being the sixth most regulated state in the nation,” Colorado Oil and Gas Association President and CEO Lynn Granger said, in an email response to questions. “The growth in regulations and uncertainty around permitting timelines has been a drag on Colorado’s economy as well as on efforts to reduce emissions in some cases. We are encouraged to see APCD’s emphasis on improving the efficiency and accountability of the permitting process and are eager to partner with APCD on sustainable solutions.”
The Center for Biological Diversity, a national and Colorado environmental nonprofit that has successfully sued state officials over permitting delays, believes Colorado could wield more permitting power under the EPA’s Clean Air Act Title V authority to demand far more from polluters.
“It would be more costly for industry, and it would probably be more difficult for some companies to install these kinds of monitoring systems,” Nichols acknowledged. “I know the state doesn’t want to be in the business of putting people out of business, but let’s be clear, there needs to be losers when it comes to protecting clean air. If companies can’t rise to the challenge of doing everything that is technologically feasible to control emissions and monitor emissions, I think it’s appropriate for the state to say you can’t do business in the nonattainment area. Or you can’t do business next to somebody’s house.”
Colorado’s air pollution division has employed Boston Consulting Group to oversee the expansion and reformation of the permitting system, including incorporation of Salesforce and some AI-assisted efficiencies in permit writing. The division also created a new position, chief operational improvement officer, who will be “leading the efforts to modernize permitting and improve how laboratory systems work … reducing backlogs, increasing transparency and making processes more efficient for both staff and the public,” Ryan said.
Improvements in the process are reflected in real gains on air pollution, division officials say. New regulations and better enforcement helped cut the amount of released nitrogen oxides, a key precursor to dangerous ozone, to 156 tons in 2023 from 276 tons in 2011. Similar progress was made in volatile organic compounds, another ozone and smog precursor partially attributable to oil and gas production.
Since the request in 2022 for a surge in state permitting assets, records and interviews show:
- Overdue Title V or “major” polluting permit applications went from 111 in November 2022 when The Sun first asked for an update to 115 in April 2023, to 128 overdue at the end of January.
- The division received 115 extra Title V permit applications by November 2023 from the ozone reclassification to “severe” violations on the Front Range.
- Extra funding in 2022 gave the division resources to hire 30 new permitting staff. Since that year, the division has hired 28 new permit engineers and supervisors, both full-time state employees and contractors. Some of those new staff are still being trained on Colorado systems.
- The number of completions of new or renewed Title V permits in each year has improved from 13 processed in calendar year 2022, to 39 in 2023, 38 in 2024, and 73 in 2025.
Nichols, the clean air advocate, questioned why the state is giving itself so much credit on process rather than talking more about strengthening standards for public health. He noted that in its December presentation to the commission, division staffers called new rules and lower thresholds for permits “headwinds.”
“The state definitely views it as just a paperwork exercise,” Nichols said. “Permitting could be used to do so much more for clean air and accountability.”