Unelected Colorado board tightens landfill methane rules statewide

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

The Air Quality Control Council (AQCC) passes strict new regulations on landfill methane emissions.

I wanted to update an earlier story about the unelected AQCC mulling rules about methane emissions for landfills. Per the Sun article linked at bottom, last month the 9 member board (with only 6 of them voting) finalized rules for landfills around the entire state.

You read that right. 6 people on a Zoom meeting made decisions for you. 6 people who you cannot vote out.

Since it’s a Sun article by advocate Michael Booth, there is ample space given to environmentalists with a couple words from those that disagreed tossed in, all of which I’ll leave for you to read over, but there are a couple details noteworthy enough to share here.

The first is a quote on from the article:

“Air pollution control staff say the regulation will apply to as many as 32 of Colorado’s 82 municipal landfills. Eleven of the larger city or county landfills already follow similar federal methane controls, which have already worked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in recent years, the state added.”

The second is a brief synopsis of the rules that Booth chose to cover. Quoting again:

“Elements of the new ‘Regulation 31’ include:

• Requiring potentially dozens of additional landfills to install methane gathering and control systems, beyond the number affected by federal rules.
• Phasing out open flaring of methane produced from the waste. Enclosed flares allow for better monitoring of effectiveness.
• Additional monitoring, including with more modern tools such as satellite imaging of emissions.
• Requiring biofilters such as layers of absorbent material at landfills that disconnect flaring devices. “

The issue for me (and it’s the same as when I first wrote about this and when I testified against it) here is hinted at with the first quote above. Larger landfills in and around the Front Range are already working to reduce emissions. Good for them. What about smaller landfills outside the Front Range in rural areas? More burdensome, unfunded mandates from political cronies of the governor and others, cronies who I might add have likely never darkened a doorway in some of the areas they’re regulating from afar.

If you notice a jump in your landfill dump rates for your local area due to this regulation, please give me a heads up. I would like to start a collection which I would then write about and possibly share with the AQCC by way of saying thank you.

https://coloradosun.com/2025/12/19/colorado-landfill-methane-control-greenhouse-gases/

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Meet the Fellows Themselves (part 1)

I am close to wrapping the mini-series on the Legislative fellows and I want to end by covering them in their own words (and in the words of the Insitute for Science and Policy who is footing the bill for their legislative work).

First a look back. If you want or need the earlier context in this series, you’ll find post #2 linked first below. That newsletter, in turn, will have a link to the first post on this topic.

I put a series of questions that I was curious about to the legislative fellows, but the timing was awkward due to the holidays. I thought about delaying this post to collect as many of their responses as possible, but didn’t want to lose momentum or have the last post be 1 week away. Rest assured that when I have their responses (or a reasonable chance for them to respond post-holiday), I will update.

Please also keep an eye on Complete Colorado, for I will likely do a broad summary on this whole thing as an op ed there.

The easiest place to start to learn about the Fellows themselves is with their quick bios which came out with the Institute’s press release. That’s linked second below. There is some interesting information there, but, as with many press releases, you have to understand that what you get has been manicured.

Finding deeper information on the Fellows was something of a challenge. I wasn’t able to find a huge amount, but did find some things. I’ll go in the same order as the Fellows appear in the press release.

Samantha Lattof’s LinkedIn profile is third below. I’ll leave it to you to poke around in there, but you will find a lot of work on women’s health issues (among others) including some work on abortion. I link to a paper she wrote on that topic fourth below.

Max O’Connor’s LinkedIn profile is linked fifth below. I excerpted the blurb from her time as a grad student and attached it as screenshot 1. The sixth link below is to a curriculum vitae of sorts, it’s a list of her academic work. You will also note that she spent a fair bit of time working with a lab group helping out at National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Lina Vilonen’s Linked in profile is linked seventh below. I think her education and work has focused (and this is my term for it) mainly on soil science. Her most recent work (prior to being a Legislative Fellow) has been as a director for the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative. That group’s site is linked eighth below.

Lastly, Dhivahari Vivek’s LinkedIn profile. It’s ninth below. I took a picture of her most recent experience and attached it as screenshot 2. As with Ms. Lattof, you will note some work on/with abortion. I link to that research tenth below.

There are two last links to share with you in this post, and those are to work actually produced thus far by O’Connor (eleventh) and Villonen (twelfth).

We all have our biases and perspectives. We all have a history and interests. While those things are sure to play into the work the Fellows do now, and what they pay attention to now, it’s important to also note their most recent work. It gives a “by their fruit shall ye know them”, current assessment.

Said another way, the whole picture matters.

Unfortunately, we won’t get the totality of their output (outside of cooperative legislators) because not all of what they produce, advise, and say will be public.

Any last updates will be given over to the questions I asked the Fellows and their responses along with a summary op ed on this series.

There’s one last thing to include and that relates to concerns you may have about work you see the Fellows producing. I asked Legislative Council Staff (and Fellows’ legislative boss) Elizabeth Burger how people could voice concerns or issues with their work. The below is a quote from her sent me via email (with email address left intact-my question is plain typeface, her response is bolded):

“What if someone (legislator/public) notes an error or has a concern with what they write? How does that process look? Where would they send their concerns? If there are concerns with any research product produced by LCS, the person can reach out to me directly (contact info below), Natalie Castle, the director of Legislative Council, or can contact lcs at [email protected] or 303-866-3521.”


https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/colorado-following-in-minnesotas?r=15ij6n&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

https://institute.dmns.org/about/colorado-science-and-technology-policy-program/meet-the-fellows/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/slattof/?_l=en_US

https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/117339/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-o-connor-a7b0b6276/

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Max-M-OConnor-2235703479

https://www.linkedin.com/in/leena-vilonen-01089074/

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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