Posted inClimate, Energy, News

Regional board to approve ozone action plan, but a Colorado coalition wants much more done

The northern Front Range’s newest plan to meet federal ozone-reduction mandates comes with a rare upfront admission that it won’t work.  The Regional Air Quality Council, a nonprofit board of experts and local officials charged with writing the state’s ozone compliance plan, will decide Friday on the latest proposals for trimming the hazardous ground-level gas. […]

Posted inBusiness, Climate, Environment, News

Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission rejects citizen petition to get faster clean trucks rules

The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission rejected a citizen petition demanding faster adoption of a  clean truck fleet, saying state air pollution staff and trucking businesses need more time to adapt rules already launched by California and other states.  A coalition led by Colorado GreenLatinos, the City and County of Denver, NAACP Colorado and more […]

Posted inClimate, Environment, News

Colorado delays key clean truck rules until 2023. Environmental justice groups are furious.  

Colorado pollution regulators now say they won’t finish long-anticipated clean truck rules until 2023, prompting cries of betrayal by environmental groups that say acting now is vital to cutting greenhouse gas and ozone-causing emissions that harm impacted communities. Key groups included by law in energy transition rulemaking said they’d been assured the rules for cleaning […]

Posted inEnergy, Environment, News

Xcel Energy is slowing the growth of community solar gardens, consumer advocates say

Community solar builders and consumer advocates who want solar gardens extended to more low-income customers say Xcel Energy has reneged on a plan to award 75 megawatts of new garden construction, and they want state regulators to step in.  Xcel responds that the bids from community solar builders came in far higher than expected, and […]

Posted inClimate, Environment, Water

South Platte River gets no new protections after heated Water Quality Control Commission hearing

Public officials, conservation groups and citizen speakers pleaded with the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission Monday to reverse a 2020 decision and strengthen protections for the South Platte River in north Denver and Adams County, but the commissioners declined.  Opponents of the commission’s decision last year thought they had one last chance in a “town […]

Posted inEnvironment, News

Environmental groups demand Polis remove Colorado Air Pollution Control director, call for independent investigation

A Colorado environmental coalition Thursday demanded that Gov. Jared Polis remove the director of the state Air Pollution Control Division, who is called out in a whistleblower complaint alleging the state endangers public health by unlawfully approving permits to pollute the air.  The coalition also asked the state attorney general’s office to launch its own […]