Bill would have required federal suspension of endangered species laws and allowed ranchers to kill wolves threatening livestock before wolves had “paws on the ground.”
Dylan Roberts
Posted inPolitics and Government
Colorado legislation to ban horse slaughter for human consumption stripped down after opposition from ranchers
The Senate Agriculture Committee passed a weaker version of the original bill that’s intended to protect horses during transport
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Politics and Government, Water
Tired of mowing your lawn? Colorado could pay you $2 a square foot to rip it out.
Colorado would expand grass turf buyouts statewide and double existing city rip-and-replace programs in a bill aimed at solving misuse of precious water during the state’s long-term drought. The bipartisan bill would create a $2 million to $4 million annual pool from general fund money to pay homeowners, businesses or any other landlords willing to […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Ethics complaints from mountain counties spur probe of state Division of Property Taxation
The Department of Local Affairs will hire a law firm to investigate the Colorado Division of Property Taxation after Eagle, La Plata and San Miguel counties made ethics complaints against the state agency’s top two directors. The move averted a call for state auditors to probe the claim that a too-cozy relationship between the state […]
Posted inBusiness, News, Politics and Government
Lobbying spending at the Colorado Capitol set another record. Here’s how much was spent.
Fueled by opposition to a measure seeking to create a public health insurance option, lobbying spending at the Colorado Capitol again reached a record. Nearly $44 million was spent during the 2020-21 fiscal year, which ended June 30, according to a Colorado Sun analysis of filings with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. That’s up […]
Posted inPolitics and Government
Colorado lawmakers blocked some misdemeanor offenders from buying guns. They also made it OK for some felons to own them.
Colorado lawmakers this year, in the wake of a mass shooting at a Boulder King Soopers, passed a bill barring people convicted of certain misdemeanor crimes from purchasing a gun for five years. The measure, House Bill 1298, was hailed as a way to prevent bloodshed and keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous […]
Posted inHealth, Politics and Government
Colorado governor signs priority bills to cut health insurance costs, limit prescription drug prices
Some private insurance companies operating in Colorado will soon be required to offer a state-regulated health insurance plan that eventually will be 15% cheaper than current rates under a bill signed into law Wednesday by Gov. Jared Polis. In addition to House Bill 1232, the health insurance measure, Polis also signed into law legislation creating […]
Posted inBusiness, Housing, News, Newsletters, Outsider
Developers working on affordable housing in Colorado’s mountains offer suggestions for pending wave of funding
The unprecedented housing crisis in Colorado will soon see an equally extraordinary flood of cash. In Colorado’s high country, where affordable housing is a decades-long issue that exploded into a catastrophe last year, an army of developers on the front lines of a complex campaign to build workforce housing are ready to help guide the […]
Posted inHealth, News, Politics and Government
Colorado Democrats’ big health insurance bill was amended 21 times. Here’s how it has changed.
It was a public option bill, and then it wasn’t. It required the health care industry to cut costs by 20% at one point, but now that figure has been slashed by a quarter. For weeks, the legislation threatened doctors with fines and licensing consequences if they didn’t participate in the initiative, but now physicians […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Politics and Government
Colorado could hand out up to $149 million in disputed conservation easement tax credits
Colorado lawmakers are considering a bill that would return up to $149 million to holders of conservation easement tax credits previously disqualified by the state, a revival of a decades-old scandal that appraisers say would be rewarding fraud. The measure, Senate Bill 33, would restore controversial easement tax credits issued from 2000 to 2013, some […]