Rocky Mountain Voice

Menu

State

Teachers Union Pushes Polis To Block Federal Scholarship Option For Families
No Comments
Complete Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Teachers Union Pushes Polis To Block Federal Scholarship Option For Families

By Ari Armstrong | Complete Colorado Will the Colorado teachers’ union be so spiteful toward private education options that they will deny Colorado families money from privately funded scholarships promoted by federal tax credits? We soon will find out. I first learned of the program in question when the Colorado Sun published Jay Stooksberry’s op-ed on the matter on August 19. As Stooksberry explains, buried within the One Big Beautiful Bill was the Education Choice for Children Act, which allows individuals to “make tax-deductible donations up to $1,700 to scholarship organizations.” Before a state’s families can take advantage, Stooksberry adds, the governor must opt in and “approve a list of qualifying scholarship organizations the year before the donations can ...
Read More
Polis opts Colorado into federal scholarship program as education spending swells
No Comments
Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

Polis opts Colorado into federal scholarship program as education spending swells

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado With Christmas right around the corner, we are all shopping in earnest. This flurry of activity makes us focus on our budget and how much we can spend on all that Christmas cheer. We are carefully counting our pennies, while the State of Colorado’s Budget continues to spend more each year. Governor Polis’ budget request for 2026 is over $50 billion. Education spending is no exception. Colorado’s per-pupil spending is $18,130, an increase of 7.4% since 2020, according to the Reason Foundation. As enrollment in public schools continues to decline, funding is going in the opposite direction. Coloradans are asking, “Where is all the money going?” Staffing levels are up, even with a 4.6% drop in public...
Read More
Delay as policy: A double standard Colorado must answer
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Delay as policy: A double standard Colorado must answer

By RMV Editorial Board Colorado is asking a court to decide whether doing nothing can amount to doing too much. In its lawsuit over frozen federal funding, the state argues that agencies crossed the line when they allowed congressionally approved programs to stall through delay and inaction. At some point, Colorado contends, refusing to decide becomes a veto Congress never granted. That argument deserves to be taken seriously—and it raises an unavoidable question closer to home. If delay is unlawful at the federal level, why has it become routine at the state level? The standard Colorado is asking courts to enforce In its lawsuit over frozen electric vehicle infrastructure funding, Colorado argues that process cannot be used to achieve outcomes lawmakers ...
Read More
The highway rule few Coloradans know is steering road projects
No Comments
ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

The highway rule few Coloradans know is steering road projects

By Scott James | Commentary, Scott K. James Colorado’s GHG rule quietly reshaped every major highway decision, forcing climate math over real-world mobility. Part 2 exposes how it happened Yesterday, in Part 1, we traced how Colorado got quietly rewired: from voters rejecting Prop 112… to SB19-181 passing anyway… to statewide GHG targets… to “roadmaps” that turned climate goals into marching orders… to SB21-260, welding transportation funding to climate policy. Today isn’t about another bill. Today is about one rule – written in the middle of COVID, on glitchy Zoom calls and muted microphones – that quietly changed how every major transportation decision in Colorado gets made: The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Transportation Planning St...
Read More
State commission blocks bid to expand public review into minor business emissions changes
No Comments
Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

State commission blocks bid to expand public review into minor business emissions changes

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project New emissions rules for minor modifications gets (thankfully) voted down. There’s something noteworthy towards the end of the Sum and Substance article linked at bottom.** The part I want to focus on begins under the heading “A debate over minor modifications”. Don’t make the same (initial) mistake I did and take it from the words that the debated would be minor! The minor modifications here refer to a change in a factory or plant’s process which might slightly alter the amount of pollution they emit. Quoting the article: “APCD [Air Pollution Control Division] staffers, for example, wanted to change the current permitting process for minor modifications — facility upgrades at major-emitt...
Read More
Colorado’s Budget Is Bigger Than Ever. Health Care Is Why.
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s Budget Is Bigger Than Ever. Health Care Is Why.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s state budget is larger than it used to be. That much isn’t disputed. What has changed over the last twenty years is where that growth landed. The Common Sense Institute’s “Colorado Budget: Then and Now” (December 2025) Colorado’s state budget has grown faster than population and inflation since the mid-2000s. The shift wasn’t sudden. It accumulated, year by year, across multiple budgets and multiple administrations. The increase shows up clearly in the numbers. In the mid-2000s, state spending worked out to a little under $5,600 per person once population and inflation were accounted for. It didn’t stay there. Year by year, the number crept higher. It now sits above $7,300. The increase...
Read More
Wind Forecast And Fire Risk Force School Schedule Changes In Metro Denver
No Comments
CBS Colorado, Approved, State

Wind Forecast And Fire Risk Force School Schedule Changes In Metro Denver

By Austen Erblat | CBS Colorado With strong winds and dry conditions forecast for Wednesday in Colorado, Xcel Energy says it will shut off power in large portions of the Denver metro area along the Front Range in an effort to prevent wildfires. As a result, some schools will be operating on a modified schedule while other school districts say they're in contact with Xcel Energy and might still change school schedules. While you should check with your child's school or school district for the latest information, as of Tuesday evening, the following changes or possible changes are in place: Weld County The Weld RE-4 School District says elementary school classes will be cancelled and middle and elementary schools will be getting out earl...
Read More
Trump Administration Moves To Break Up Boulder Based NCAR In Climate Research Shakeup
No Comments
USA Today, Approved, State

Trump Administration Moves To Break Up Boulder Based NCAR In Climate Research Shakeup

By Joey Garrison | USA TODAY WASHINGTON ‒ The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs. Trump officials have circled the federally funded research institution, based in Boulder, Colorado, as a hub for "federal climate alarmism" after it was established decades earlier in 1960 for research in atmospheric chemistry and physical meteorology. The administration plans to identify and eliminate what it calls "green new scam research activities" during an upcoming review of the center, according to the White House, while "vital functions" such as weather modeling and supercomputing will be moved to an...
Read More
How climate policy became the steering wheel of Colorado government
No Comments
ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

How climate policy became the steering wheel of Colorado government

By Scott James | Commentary, Scott K. James In part 1 of my five-part series, I reveal how climate mandates quietly reshaped Colorado’s laws, roads, and local control – without a vote from the people. Yesterday, I told you the truth about where I am – not as an elected official, not as a partisan, not as a policy wonk, but as a human being who loves this state enough to lose sleep over it. If you missed it, you can read that emotional prologue here. That was the heart.Today begins the head. Today marks the first installment of the five-part series I promised – not ranting, not rumor, not political theater, but the receipts. The real sequence of events, the policies, the bills, the rules, the decisions, and the machinery that fundamentally reshap...
Read More
What Xcel promised regulators and what customers were told before Dec. 17 shutoff warnings
No Comments
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

What Xcel promised regulators and what customers were told before Dec. 17 shutoff warnings

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Coloradans are being asked to prepare for the chance of a planned outage on Dec. 17. The company’s public alerts tell people to watch the map. The filings tell a fuller story about thresholds, timelines and who is supposed to be in the loop when a shutoff is on the table. That framework was not created overnight. It was built through years of filings with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and formally approved in 2025. As of Dec. 16, the documents already on record allow for a clearer picture of what Xcel committed to regulators and what customers were actually told as the wind event approached. Dec. 17 was not an improvisation Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) are not ad hoc emergency decisions. They are a s...
Read More