Colorado oil and gas, climate deal includes fees, abandoned bills

Leading Colorado Democrats and the state’s oil and gas industry announced a preemptive armistice Monday — one that seeks to defuse the latest round of dueling ballot initiatives and legislation aimed at the industry and its environmental impacts. The proposals, described to reporters by Gov. Jared Polis and legislative leadership, include imposing a new per-barrel … Read more

Colorado lawmakers revive affordable housing right of first refusal

Nine years ago, one of Silverthorne’s few income-restricted housing properties was sold to a private firm. The sale — at a price that was double the property’s assessed value — raised worries in the high-cost mountain community that the new owner of the Blue River Apartments might lift rent caps that had kept its 78 … Read more

Colorado lawmakers drop planned overhaul of RTD’s elected board

Colorado lawmakers are abandoning plans to overhaul the Regional Transportation District’s governing board and change how its members are selected after transit officials blasted the plan. Reps. William Lindstedt and Meg Froelich said Wednesday that they are still set to pursue other RTD reforms through House Bill 1447. But they said they plan to drop … Read more

Gov. Jared Polis signs bill barring most occupancy limits in cities

Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law Monday that officially eliminates most restrictions on how many unrelated roommates can live together in Colorado. House Bill 1007 prohibits local governments from enacting occupancy limits, which Polis and other critics of the policy have derided as discriminatory and outdated. Roughly two dozen Colorado cities have such … Read more

Colorado lawmakers plan return of criminal justice commission

Colorado legislators are working to launch two commissions that will help shape criminal justice policy statewide into the near future, an effort that’s drawn the praise of policymakers while reigniting the same simmering tensions that helped sink a predecessor last year. Under recommendations issued last month by a working group convened by Gov. Jared Polis, … Read more

Budget week part 2, tax credits, prone-restraint bills in Colorado legislature

Colorado legislators will work through Budget Madness Part 2 this week, as the state’s spending plan for next year is set to pass the House on Monday before crossing over and restarting the process in the Senate. The House worked all day and into the night Thursday (before taking Good Friday off) to give initial … Read more