Manny Rutinel wants to represent Colorado’s oil country. His law is bearing down on its only refinery.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

State Rep. Manny Rutinel is asking voters in the heart of Colorado’s oil country to send him to Congress. Seven weeks from now, a law Rutinel helped write could reshape how Colorado’s only petroleum refinery operates.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment published a refinery assessment on May 1 after HB24-1338—the 2024 bill Rutinel co-sponsored—required the state to conduct it.

The state hired Eastern Research Group to do the work. ERG compared Suncor’s Commerce City refinery—in Rutinel’s own state House district—against standards in California, Texas and Indiana and found multiple areas where Colorado’s current permits fall short.

A public meeting on the assessment is May 13. If CDPHE acts on the findings, a new refinery rule must be proposed by July 1. Both deadlines were built into HB24-1338.

That deadline is seven weeks away.

RMV asked the Rutinel campaign ten specific questions about the report, the rulemaking deadline and what tighter controls on Suncor could mean for the district’s economy. A campaign spokesperson responded with one sentence: “As the son of a single mom who was raised on food stamps, Manny believes in a safe and affordable all-of-the-above energy solution that keeps costs for families low and protects good-paying jobs in our communities.”

No questions were answered.

The bill and what it built

HB24-1338, titled Cumulative Impacts and Environmental Justice, passed the Colorado House 43-18 and the Senate 20-13. Gov. Jared Polis signed it May 28, 2024. It took effect immediately under a safety clause.

Congressman Gabe Evans, then a state representative, voted no.

Among other things, the law created the Office of Environmental Justice inside CDPHE. It required Suncor to begin transmitting emissions data to state regulators in near real time—one-minute averaged readings—beginning January 1, 2025. And it required CDPHE to hire a petroleum refinery regulation expert and, if appropriate, propose a new refinery rule by July 1, 2026.

The Environmental Justice Action Task Force, whose recommendations informed HB24-1338, called for sweeping changes to how Colorado agencies permit, fund and regulate industry—including authority for regulators to deny permits in communities where pollution thresholds are already exceeded.

“From playing dress up as a cow to demand veganism-for-all to passing a mini Green New Deal in the Colorado legislature, Manny Rutinel has spent his entire adult life fighting the crazy climate crusade,” RNC spokesman Zach Kraft said. “He is running on a very clear agenda—kill hundreds of thousands of jobs across Colorado and make everything cost more.”

What the report found

The ERG assessment measured Suncor against refineries in California’s South Coast and Bay Area air districts, Indiana and Texas and found gaps across multiple emissions categories.

Suncor ranked as the highest VOC emitter among all 176 major industrial facilities in Colorado in 2022 and accounted for more than half of all sulfur dioxide emissions from point sources within 3.5 miles of the facility.

The report identified specific areas where other states impose tighter controls than Colorado currently requires of Suncor. On nitrogen oxide emissions from one category of refinery equipment, California’s limit is more than 25 times stricter than what Colorado permits at Suncor’s Plant 1.

For fenceline monitoring—the sensors that track what is escaping into surrounding neighborhoods—the gaps are stark. California triggers a benzene alert at the fenceline at 8 parts per billion. Colorado requires Suncor to notify regulators only when levels reach 18 parts per million—a threshold thousands of times higher.

Suncor is operating within its current Colorado permits and within applicable federal standards. The question HB24-1338 put before CDPHE is whether those permits are strict enough.

The report repeatedly notes that additional technical and economic feasibility analysis would still be required before any new refinery controls could be imposed. ERG also emphasized that the assessment itself does not represent final CDPHE policy conclusions. Still, the report identified potential new controls that would require significant capital investment from the refinery.

ERG also found 108 startup, shutdown and malfunction events at Suncor from 2022 through 2024, the majority involving flares and other refinery equipment.

The district he wants to represent

Colorado’s 8th is oil country. The district runs from the northern Denver suburbs through Adams County and up into Greeley and Weld County, sitting above the Denver-Julesburg Basin, which produces roughly 3.7 percent of all U.S. oil. 

At its south end: Suncor, the state’s only petroleum refinery, operating in Commerce City since the 1930s. The facility now processes about 98,000 barrels of crude a day into gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and asphalt—contributing $2.5 billion annually to Colorado’s economy, the company says.

Evans, now on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, recently co-authored an op-ed calling Colorado’s District 8 refineries producers of “vital energy resources that keep our nation running.” He won the seat in 2024 by fewer than 2,500 votes in a race rated a toss-up by Cook Political Report, Inside Elections and Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

Rutinel is facing Democrat Shannon Bird and Evan Munsing in the June 30 primary. Bird voted yes on final passage of HB24-1338. The winner faces Evans in November.

Rutinel’s record and his pivot

Before entering the legislature, Rutinel worked as an environmental attorney for Earthjustice’s Sustainable Food and Farming Program. He co-founded and led Climate Refarm, a public benefit corporation that helped institutions shift to plant-based meals and signed onto a 2022 letter urging cities to consider taxing meat, dairy and eggs. Climate Refarm has since dissolved.

In a February 2026 appearance on the Future Caucus YouTube series “Lawmakers on Lawmakers,” Rutinel described his pre-legislative work.

“Before I was a legislator, I was an environmental attorney and so my whole job was to take on large corporations that were profiting off of basically the backs of communities like mine,” he said.

Asked about hot days in Colorado, he said: “We do have hot days, increasingly so because of climate change. But hopefully if we do our jobs right we’ll be able to slow that down.”

His campaign website calls him “the candidate who will fight for the hardworking families of the 8th District.”

What the campaign did not address: that the bill Rutinel co-sponsored created the regulatory framework now being applied to the state’s only refinery.

The enforcement backdrop

In February 2024, CDPHE announced a $10.5 million enforcement package against the refinery—the largest ever against a single Colorado facility—for air pollution violations spanning July 2019 through June 2021. The violations included exceedances of EPA and state limits for sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, as well as violations involving hydrogen sulfide concentrations and visible emissions standards. The settlement also required Suncor to double its fenceline monitoring network.

The action followed a separate $9 million settlement with CDPHE in 2020 for earlier air quality violations. 

Some residents and environmental groups argue the fines haven’t been enough. Earthjustice sued on behalf of GreenLatinos, 350 Colorado and the Sierra Club in 2024, arguing Colorado had failed to stop years of Clean Air Act violations. A federal judge threw out the case. The coalition appealed. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments March 18 in Denver and has not ruled.

The clock

CDPHE’s public meeting on the refinery assessment is May 13, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. It is a public information meeting, not a rulemaking hearing. The July 1 deadline is not a guarantee that new rules will be adopted—the statute requires CDPHE to propose a rule only if the division deems it appropriate. And the commission retains the right to act at any time, meaning the question of new Suncor controls does not expire on July 1.

Rutinel co-sponsored the law now targeting the state’s only refinery. He’s asking voters who work there to send him to Congress. He hasn’t told them what it might cost.

RMV sought comment from the Rutinel campaign on ten specific questions regarding HB24-1338, the Colorado Refinery Assessment and the July 1, 2026 rulemaking deadline. A campaign spokesperson provided a one-sentence statement. No questions were answered.