Bills in Colorado legislature take aim at poor Front Range air quality

Democratic state legislators on Thursday rolled out an ambitious suite of bills aimed at improving the Front Range’s air quality — among the worst in the nation — by taking specific aim at the oil and gas industry.

The three bills will focus on curbing toxic emissions from oil and gas drilling sites by changing how Colorado issues permits, lengthening the state’s summer ozone season to five months instead of three, putting a halt to drilling during summer months, and increasing the amount of money companies can be fined if they violate the terms of their air-pollution permits.

The bills are the result of an interim legislative committee on ozone air quality that was established during the 2023 session. Politicians, environmentalists and others met for months to study the state’s pollution, which is most noticeable on hot summer days when a brown smog blankets the Front Range and obscures mountain views. The committee was not allowed to draft bills but was tasked with recommending new policies for improving air quality.

“Breathing should not be dangerous,” said state Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, and the sponsor of one of three bills. “Our neighbors are demanding we put people over profits.”

The bills were introduced Thursday after a news conference in the Capitol lobby where dozens of environmentalists cheered as the politicians expressed their urgency to address climate change and the state’s poor air quality.

Representatives of the oil and gas industry immediately drew a hard line on the bills during a Thursday afternoon news conference of their own, with executives saying they will oppose all three measures.

Kait Schwartz, director of the American Petroleum Institute Colorado, accused lawmakers of listening to “extreme environmental special interest groups” and ignoring how important the industry is to Colorado’s economy, since it provides much-needed fuel to power industry and creates well-paying jobs for residents.

“The truth is that these legislators aren’t here representing Coloradans,” Schwartz said. “They aren’t contemplating the environmental consequences of these policies, the impacts on consumers or the countless jobs that will be lost.”

Severe air-quality violator

For years, the Front Range has been out of compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. In 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency designated the nine-county northern Front Range region — including metro Denver — as being in “severe nonattainment,” which means more federal regulations will be imposed on consumers and businesses.

And as the air quality has worsened, the people most impacted by the foul air have pushed the state to do better.

Last year, the American Lung Association listed three Colorado cities among the most polluted in the United States. Ozone pollution causes breathing disorders such as asthma and lung cancer and also contributes to pre-term births and low birth weights, as well as heart attacks and strokes, the report said.

“Children are the most vulnerable to ozone pollution and poor air quality,” said Dr. Nikita Habermehl, a pediatric emergency physician in Aurora and member of Healthy Air and Water Colorado. “Furthermore, research indicates that ozone exposure in the first and second trimester of pregnancy is related to preterm birth and low birth weight. Too often in my emergency department, I treat children suffering from severe asthma attacks that can be linked to higher levels of ozone and other pollutants in the air.”

However, pushing the bills through the legislature will not be easy as Democrats will need to convince Gov. Jared Polis to support the proposals even after he last year forced legislators to weaken similar bills.

On Thursday, the governor would not commit his support. Instead, his office chose to tout executive orders to reduce nitrogen oxides emitted by the oil and gas industry and strategies his administration has promoted to increase the use of electric vehicles.

Polis was not consulted by the legislators who drafted the bills, said Shelby Wieman, a spokeswoman for the governor. His staff is reviewing the bills and will monitor their progress through the legislature.

Already, a bill introduced earlier this month would phase out new permits for drilling by 2030. On Thursday, more than 50 business associations, local governments and rural advocacy groups sent a letter to Polis, Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg and House Speaker Julie McCluskie to ask them to kill the bill.

What’s in the new bills

Of the legislation introduced Thursday, one bill’s goal is to reduce toxic air emissions, one bill would increase enforcement power for state air quality regulators and the third bill would change how the state issues air pollution permits to oil and gas operators.

The bill that addresses emissions — SB24-165 — revisits some requirements the legislature already put in place in previous years, including limits on greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and cutting the use of large, diesel-powered off-road vehicles such as backhoes and bulldozers, which are primarily used in the oil and gas and construction industries.

“In the summer when the scrapers are out prepping land for development you’ll just see all the diesel get spouted out,” said Sen. Kevin Priola, D-Adams County, who is one of the bill’s sponsors. “And there’s current technology over-the-road trucks use that they can slap on those diesel tractors and cut their emissions by 40%.”

That bill also would expand the summer ozone season by two months, making it stretch from May 1 to Sept. 30, and prohibit oil and gas companies from drilling in the northern Front Range non-attainment area during that period. Many state regulations in place to curb harmful emissions are only effective during the summer ozone season, so an expansion would force industry to follow those rules for five months rather than three.

Senate Bill 24-166 would boost enforcement powers by establishing definitions for repeat violators and “high priority repeat violators,” and would leave regulators less room to negotiate settlements as the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division recently did with Suncor Energy. Suncor likely would fall into the “high priority repeat violators” category.

The bill also would create an avenue for private citizens to bring lawsuits against polluters if the Air Pollution Control Division fails to do so, and it would create a path for local governments to fine companies that violate local air quality ordinances.

Finally, the third bill — HB24-1330 — would change how the state issues air permits to companies that pollute, an effort that failed during the 2023 legislative session because of a lack of support from Polis.