By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project
Funded mandates on county landfills?
One of the consistent complaints coming out of municipal and local governments is the sheer number of unfunded mandates our state government puts on them. For some context on that, I link to an Advance Colorado report on them first below.
Not all mandates come from the state legislature either. Sometimes they come from one of the copious unelected boards running more of the state than they should.
A recent decision by the unelected Air Quality Control Council imposed significant costs on smaller, municipal landfills regarding methane controls.
As usual, this mandate did not come with any dollars to help fund it.
My state senator, B Pelton, has put forward a bill to make the state pay for what the state is asking local governments to do. It’s linked third below.
When I first looked at the bill and saw only Pelton as a sponsor, I figured this thing didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. When I looked at the bill history, I was surprised to see it make it out of its committee hearing.
I put this to a couple things. First, the bill doesn’t cost anything, always a plus in a tight budget year. Quoting the bill’s fiscal note:
“The bill minimally increases workload in the CDPHE to conduct rulemaking and adjust grant distributions under the Community Impact Cash Fund. Because the bill expands the allowable uses of existing grant funds, but does not require specific awards or appropriate additional funding, the fiscal note cannot estimate the amount or timing of grants that may be awarded; however, any awards are assumed to shift expenditures within existing cash funds, and overall state expenditures are not expected to increase.”
The other thing I put this to is the modifications made during its committee hearing.
Screenshots 1 and 2 show the bill’s original actions (in summary form) and the subsequent description of the bill from its fiscal note (after amendments) respectively.
In broad strokes, a comparison of the bill’s summaries in the attached screenshots shows that almost the entirety of the bill as written was gone and replaced with something a lot weaker.
Oh, and if you happen to own a private landfill? Back of the line, pal.
In a county and struggling to pay the penalties for the state’s unfunded mandate? Ah well.
Why go from the original version to the latter one? Why sacrifice things like the above or like the ability to get a waiver from the state if you are able to meet the emission goals without using their preferred method?
I spoke on the phone with B Pelton about this and he told me (my words) that this was some political sausage making.
He gave up on the other parts of the bill, fighting with the environmental lobby and environmentalist senators, in order to have the opportunity to include wording in the legislative declaration about how the methane mandates are going to raise costs on consumers.
As of this writing, the bill has now, in its amended form, passed the Senate and is over in the House awaiting its first committee hearing. If you want to advocate or follow the bill, you can do so through the link at bottom.
*A good rule of thumb is that a bill with only one sponsor will probably not make it.
**See the second post today for a more thorough look at how to note and find amendments.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/SB26-101
Related:
In speaking with my Senator B Pelton about this bill and the reason for the amendments, he made mention of how during testimony a group of county leaders spoke in favor of the bill and put numbers to the costs of these state mandates.
If you’re curious to watch that, check the committee audio file linked below starting at about the 2:12:55 mark.
https://sg001-harmony.sliq.net/00327/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20260413/-1/18579#agenda_
How can you track bill amendments?
The previous post today made reference to how SB26-101 got radically changed by committee amendments.** I promised a run through for how and where to find amendments to legislation, and here we are.
There are multiple ways to do this, but I think it best to start with the bill link itself. No matter when or where amendments happen, you’ll always find them there. SB26-101 is linked first below for convenience.
Scrolling down on that page takes you to what you see in screenshot 1. The list of amendments to a bill can be found under the header “Related Documents and Information”.
As you can see, I clicked on the “Amendments” tab, which brings up the list. Clicking on the blue hyperlinks on the far right lets you read them.
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT 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.
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