Gaines: Colorado’s unelected boards hold the real power—and it’s hurting rural counties

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Regulatory Capture and Colorado’s Unelected Boards

I wrote a bit back (see the first link below) about how our state is increasingly turfing what ought to be legislative control to a series of unelected boards, how legislative laziness has effectively handed over control of our state to them.

Rulemaking and regulation might make things more efficient, it might enable higher policy output with less time, but it is not without cost. It’s one of those costs I want to cover today: policy by unelected board opens us up to control, not by the people, but by industry and (increasingly in Colorado) advocates.

This is due to cronyism in board appointments and also what might loosely be termed a form of “regulatory capture” (if you will allow the expansion of the definition to not just include industry but also well-funded advocacy groups).

Regulatory capture is when a political entity is co-opted to serve the needs of some minority political interest. One example is when an industry group (or group of major players in that industry) gains so much influence as to essentially control the board which regulates them. Another is when some advocacy group gains that influence in an area which they’re keen on.

In addition to making it so we the people are not running things via our accountable elected officials, per the Wikipedia explainer on the topic linked second below: “When regulatory capture occurs, a special interest is prioritized over the general interests of the public, leading to a net loss for society.”

A commonly-cited example of this dynamic is when large players in an industry befriend a regulatory board and sway policy in such a way as to squeeze out the smaller players. They use the government as their cudgel in the game of survival that is business.

It’s not quite a canonical example, but I can give you a Colorado case that’s close. Back in 2024, Governor Polis, a group of big oil companies, and environmentalists got together behind closed doors to come to a compromise to avoid other ballot issue fights and rulemaking. The compromise they came up with is summarized in screenshot 1 attached, taken from the Sun article linked third below.

Know who didn’t get a seat at the table? Smaller producers. I’m not an expert on the oil business, but I’d bet you my lunch that the big producers who got to meet with the governor can manage to meet the requirements they agreed to a lot more easily and cheaply than the smaller ones.

Shifting to look at how advocacy groups and special interests have co-opted the regulatory process in Colorado paints, in some sense, a worse picture than industry capture. I say this because when you look at advocacy groups interacting with rulemaking boards, especially in the era of Governor Jared Polis, you see the advocates operating on both sides of the table.

CPW is the easiest and most obvious example. The Center for Biological Diversity recently submitted a request for rulemaking to CPW in an attempt to end-run around what voters (at least in Denver) have expressly rejected. The fact that the Center went to CPW’s board (stuffed with known animal rights activists and having more strings tying them to the Center than strands in a spider web) is exactly what I mean about working both sides of the table.

The activists on the board are sympathetic to and associated with the cause of the advocate on the other side trying to take institute policy via the board. If you want more context on that and another example, check out an op ed I wrote on this topic linked fourth below.

Another more recent example comes from the CPR article linked fifth below. Skipping the subject of the article (which is not too germane to the subject here), I pulled a quote:

“Other advocates want to see the state take decisive action. Elise Jones, the executive director of the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, an environmental advocacy group, recently left her appointment on the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, where she pushed for more aggressive regulations to limit pollution from lawn equipment.”

Guess who frequently speaks at rulemaking hearings about energy and/or air quality trying to guide policy? If you guessed Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, you guessed right.

One of Governor Polis’ canned responses to criticisms about board appointments has been that a Colorado for all means a Colorado for all. I don’t know that I have a problem with that. In theory, in the absence of legislative action on issues, I would rather have the rulemaking and regulatory boards across this state reflect the diversity of this state than not.

But lost in Polis’ grand rhetoric, and lost in the political theory of the legislature delegating to rulemaking bodies, is the reality that a Colorado for all means boards made up of Polis’ cronies and friends. Rather than true diversity of thought and location in this state, we have people who move in and out of the very advocacy groups that sit in front of the board at hearings to influence policy.

As I mentioned in my earlier post on the topic of regulatory boards (link 1 below), this is not how things ought to run in this state.

I again urge you to speak up about this. Contact your state senator and representative. Testify in front of these boards and call things like this out. Share information with your friends so that they can also get a sense of just how little influence over policy they now have in their own state.


https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/colorados-bloated-regulatory-state?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/29/colorado-oil-and-gas-deal-2024/

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/bypassing-voters-will-via-unelected-boards-isnt-democracy-podium/article_50afffb1-ce97-4420-ad12-032a6c0ad29c.html

https://www.cpr.org/2025/07/08/gas-powered-lawn-tools-colorado-law-enforcement/

Related:

The article below lists out the most recent Polis appointees to various boards around the state.

https://kiowacountypress.net/content/governor-polis-announces-new-boards-and-commissions-appointments-0#google_vignette

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Following up on “And now the landfills”

Back earlier in the month, I posted about regulatory actions taken on landfills in Colorado. That newsletter is linked first below if you need a refresher or to get the context.

After posting that, State Senator Byron Pelton (SD1, my district) contacted me and wanted to share some of the behind the scenes stuff, as well as connect me to Morgan County Commissioner Jon Becker for his perspective. I thought both would make a good, quick update to that earlier post.

Senator Pelton shared an email he received from CDPHE’s legislative liaison re. their new rules. Let’s start there so you can get CDPHE’s perspective.

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.