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Colorado’s Uranium Prospects Return as America Seeks Reliable Fuel Sources
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

Colorado’s Uranium Prospects Return as America Seeks Reliable Fuel Sources

By Scott Weiser | The Denver Gazette Uranium mining in Colorado has a bright future. George Glasier believes that. From his cattle ranch near Nucla, Colo., where sagebrush valleys give way to rugged canyons, Glasier leads a company working to restart old uranium mines and build a new ore processing plant. This push comes at a pivotal time for an industry that’s endured decades of booms and busts. Uranium, the key material for nuclear power, was recently reclassified as a “critical mineral” by the U.S. Geological Survey under an executive order from President Donald Trump, who said he wants to “unleash” American energy. Formerly classified as a fuel source, uranium miners and refiners have not been eligible for the same kinds of taxpayer support offered to other mineral suppl...
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Colorado’s auto theft reckoning: A crisis we built, a crisis we can fix
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado’s auto theft reckoning: A crisis we built, a crisis we can fix

By RMV Editorial Board Colorado didn’t become the nation’s auto theft capital by accident. It got there through a decade of choices that treated working families’ cars like disposable assets. Lawmakers downgraded the theft of “low-value” vehicles to a low-level offense and sold it as reform. They never explained the part where families would carry the cost. Criminals understood the message right away. If the state didn’t take these thefts seriously, why would the offenders?  The surge pushed Colorado to No. 1 in auto theft back in 2021 and we didn’t fall far—No. 2 in 2023 and No. 4 in 2024—as neighborhoods kept paying the price in lost time and tighter budgets. State Patrol signals a shift What says more than any statistic is what the state is doing now. In a recent sta...
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Colorado Businesses Warn State Policies Threaten Economic Future
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DENVER7, Approved, State

Colorado Businesses Warn State Policies Threaten Economic Future

By Dan Grossman | Denver7 The sentiment comes from the latest Colorado Businesses Roundtable fall outlook survey and points to Colorado's affordability issues and regulatory environment. DENVER — Colorado businesses said they’re almost twice as worried about our state’s economic future as they are about the nation’s. This is from the Colorado Business Roundtable survey that just came out. The survey asked 50 business executives about what’s concerning them. The responses point toward Colorado’s affordability issues and policies supporting workers. “What we've been seeing over time is really the layering on effect of regulation, rules for businesses that really add a cost of doing business to Colorado,” Colorado Business Roundtable President Debbie Brown said. “When the eco...
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Tina Peters’ attorney presses Governor Polis and Secretary Griswold to eliminate computer voting machines
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Tina Peters’ attorney presses Governor Polis and Secretary Griswold to eliminate computer voting machines

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Attorney John Case, who represents former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, has sent an open letter to Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold urging the state to immediately discontinue electronic voting systems and return to in-person, hand-counted paper ballots. Case’s letter, dated October 21, outlines a series of concerns about the Dominion voting software used in 60 counties. It cites sworn testimony from two former Venezuelan election insiders who claim Dominion’s systems share code and design elements with Smartmatic software previously used in Venezuela—software the witnesses allege was developed to ensure predetermined outcomes. According to the letter, those sworn statements were part of federal court filings in...
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Pueblo Fights Back as Colorado’s Coal Plants Close and Jobs Disappear
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Colorado Politics, Approved, Local

Pueblo Fights Back as Colorado’s Coal Plants Close and Jobs Disappear

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics As Colorado darts toward a future powered by “clean” energy, a battle is brewing in Pueblo, where coal closures, union jobs and lost tax revenue collide with a community demanding a solution as its power plants are a primary target for a shutdown. Between 2025 and 2031, six more coal-fired power plants in Colorado are scheduled to be shut down or converted to another energy source, such as natural gas. With more than 800 jobs to be affected, another three plants are on the list for future closures. The closures are raising alarm bells, notably for the unions that count the power plant workers as members. A group has put forward an action plan called the Colorado Energy Compact, calling for a “balanced and sustainable energy policy” and a...
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Arkansas Valley Pipeline Could Finally Deliver Clean Water to Forgotten Towns
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, Local

Arkansas Valley Pipeline Could Finally Deliver Clean Water to Forgotten Towns

By Jerd Smith | The Colorado Sun Years of buying radium-free water from vending machines is coming to an end, but the cost to build the Arkansas Valley Conduit continues to rise and deadlines to use federal funds are fast-approaching. Rick Jones strides quickly into the offices of the May Valley Water Association. He’s running late after a morning of checking leaks in a pipeline that is one of several delivering well water to his 1,500 customers. Jones has lived in Wiley, nearly 200 miles southeast of Denver, most of his life and has served as superintendent of the association for 38 years. Outside the front door of his office in a small, well-kept brick building on Main Street, a dispenser delivers radium-free water for 25 cents a gallon to anyone who walks up with a container...
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The push to redefine beneficial use ignores 100 years of western water law
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GregWalcher.com, Approved, Commentary, State

The push to redefine beneficial use ignores 100 years of western water law

By Greg Walcher | Commentary, GregWalcher.com Last week when some marauding teens bashed a mailbox with a bat, angry neighbors posted on nextdoor.com, “there needs to be a law against that.” Is that just an impulse reaction, or do they really not know there is a law against that. Since 1909, it has been a federal offense to tamper with, vandalize, deface, or destroy mailboxes, under penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine. People often think things ought to be illegal that already are, that we should regulate things we already do, even that things ought to be defined that already are. I couldn’t help wondering how serious recent headlines were, announcing that several environmental industry groups had petitioned the Bureau of Reclamation to stop allowing water to be wast...
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Is the Colorado Economy More of a Train Wreck than it Currently Appears?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Is the Colorado Economy More of a Train Wreck than it Currently Appears?

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Given all the sad news last week, a September 9 press release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announcing a major downward revision in job numbers for March 2024 to March 2025 was understandably overlooked. The serious implications the announcement had for the national and especially the Colorado economies still, nonetheless, remain today. Revisions to BLS jobs numbers are normal and happen annually because the monthly estimates of how many new jobs are being created or lost in the economy come from surveys of around 121,000 businesses representing about 631,000 individual worksites. Because companies come and go, the BLS combines their survey data with estimates of how many net new jobs are being created at ...
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New Colorado program shifts defendants from jail to treatment on competency grounds
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

New Colorado program shifts defendants from jail to treatment on competency grounds

By Michael Braithwaite | The Denver Gazette In an attempt to reduce wait times for inpatient defendant competency restoration, Colorado courts are launching a new program to divert eligible people into a separate community care process. The near-$1.5 million program, which uses money from the general fund and was spurred by the passage of House Bill 24-1355 last June, will create a process in each judicial district to identify certain individuals who are not competent enough to proceed in a trial process and refer them to a wraparound program that will connect them with external care, according to a news release from the Colorado Judicial Branch and the bill itself. “This work is the result of years of collaboration, deep listening, and versatility,” said Gene Klivansky,...
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CPW takes lethal action after wolf linked to livestock kills in rural Colorado
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

CPW takes lethal action after wolf linked to livestock kills in rural Colorado

By Piper Russell | The Denver Gazette Colorado Parks and Wildlife announced on Friday that it shot a wolf that had been chronically depredating livestock in Rio Blanco County. However, the carcass has not been found. CPW also said that after conducting DNA analysis on samples gathered from the uncollared gray wolf in Rio Blanco County it was confirmed that the uncollared wolf was the fifth Copper Creek yearling that was not captured with the rest of the pack in fall 2024. The wolf is suspected to have killed six animals from livestock producers in Rio Blanco County. The depredations started on July 20 when the Division and Wildlife Services was notified of a dead lamb on a livestock producers’ allotment northeast of Meeker Colorado. That attack was followed by others reported o...
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