Part 1 of 5: How Colorado Got Quietly Rewired

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 reshaped Colorado while most people were living their lives, working their jobs, and trusting that the state they grew up in was still the one being stewarded.

I wish this were a different kind of series. I wish it were about the bright future Weld County is poised to build – energy, agriculture, higher education, data centers, new industries, a medical school, and the promise of a region full of people who still believe in work, possibility, and community. But you can’t build a future without understanding the forces that are quietly redirecting the very systems – transportation, land use, energy policy, air regulation – that used to make Colorado functional, affordable, and free.

Over the past decade, a slow, methodical rewiring of state policy has taken place. It didn’t arrive with a single bill or one sweeping reform. It came through a sequence – a domino chain that started with a voter defeat, moved through a rapid legislative rewrite, hardened into statewide greenhouse gas mandates, spread through agencies via “roadmaps,” and then embedded itself in the very levers that govern transportation, land use, energy, and local authority.

Most Coloradans never saw it happening because it didn’t come through the front door.

It came through rulemaking boards, commissions, technical standards, “modeling requirements,” and white-paper “visions” that later became laws. It came through policy structures so dense that the average citizen couldn’t possibly track them – an alphabet soup of acronyms that obscured real shifts in power.

Meanwhile, the daily pressures on ordinary people grew heavier:

• Congestion worsened.
• Costs rose.
• Housing became unattainable.
• Commuting became a grind.
• Local authority shrank.
• And “public comment” slowly filled with coordinated activism instead of the voices of people who build, work, farm, haul, teach, and raise families.

Somewhere along the way, Colorado stopped being led by pragmatists and builders and started being shaped by a narrow ideological framework – one that views driving, energy production, growth, and even mobility as problems to be managed down, rather than the engines of real lives.

That brings us here.
To Part 1.
To the receipts.

Below, you will find a clear, sourced, factual accounting of how Colorado’s governance structure shifted – from voters rejecting Proposition 112… to Senate Bill 19-181 ushering in a new era of regulatory power… to statewide climate mandates locking in greenhouse gas targets… to roadmaps steering agencies… to transportation funding tied to climate compliance… and finally, to rules that regulate mobility itself.

This isn’t rumor.
This isn’t exaggeration.
This is what happened.

Scroll down for “How Colorado Got Quietly Rewired.”

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PART 1 – HOW COLORADO GOT QUIETLY REWIRED

The Story of How a Small Circle Turned Climate Policy Into the Steering Wheel of the Entire State

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1. The People Said No. The Capitol Said, “Actually, Yes.”

2018 – Proposition 112 hits the ballot. Colorado voters reject it.

Prop 112 would have required most new oil and gas wells to be 2,500 feet from homes, schools, and waterways. That kind of setback would have wiped out development in many counties.

Voters rejected it in November 2018.
The Colorado Sun and CPR both emphasized how decisively it failed.

Normally, that’s the end of the story.

Except – it wasn’t.

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2. April 2019: Senate Bill 19-181 arrives – and everything changes

Just months after voters said “no,” the legislature passed SB19-181, titled:

“Protect Public Welfare Oil and Gas Operations.”
(That title deserves its own sitcom laugh track.)

Here’s what the bill actually did:

✓ Changed the mission of the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission

From “fostering” development to regulating it to protect health and the environment. Legal analyses note this was a complete reversal of the Commission’s purpose.

✓ Gave local governments expansive new powers

Cities and counties could now impose stricter rules — including setbacks, noise, traffic, surface impacts – even pass moratoria.

Colorado Chamber and legal analyses said the bill allowed restrictions “up to and including an outright prohibition of oil and gas development.”

✓ Triggered local bans and moratoria across the Front Range

Boulder County, Adams County, Superior, Erie, Lafayette, Timnath – all enacted moratoria or heavy restrictions after SB19-181.

So yes: the very thing voters rejected was re-created through legislative authority and regulatory reinterpretation.
No ballot box needed.

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3. The Governor’s Office Scene – the Moment the Mask Slipped

This part isn’t in any official document.
It’s lived experience.

When SB19-181 was rolling through the Capitol, then-Commissioner (now Senator) Barb Kirkmeyer and I went to testify against it. Two Weld County Commissioners in the Capitol caught Gov. Polis’s attention, and he invited us to his office.

In that meeting:

• Kirkmeyer had the bill text open on her iPad.
• She read him specific lines – the ones that would crush Weld County’s energy economy.
• Polis took the iPad in his own hands, looked at it, and said: “It doesn’t say that.”

It did say that.
Either he didn’t read his own bill, or he knew exactly what it did and deflected.

But here’s the real point:

It didn’t matter.

The votes were already lined up.
The advocacy groups were already on board.
The legislative machinery was already warmed up.

SB19-181 passed.
And Colorado changed.

That meeting wasn’t just frustrating – it was my first glimpse of the Colorado leftist machine.

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4. The Climate Law That Became the Master Key – HB19-1261

The same year, the legislature passed another bill that didn’t get the same headlines but ended up being more powerful than almost anything else:

HB19-1261 – The Climate Action Plan to Reduce Pollution

This law set legally binding statewide greenhouse-gas reduction targets:

• 26% below 2005 levels by 2025
• 50% by 2030
• 90% by 2050

These numbers aren’t suggestions.

They’re written into statute. They have no true health nexus – they’re numbers that were just pulled out of thin air.

And once those targets exist, the state must bend every single regulatory system toward hitting them:

• Energy
• Transportation
• Land use
• Building codes
• Air quality
• Vehicles
• Local planning
• Even agriculture

This is the moment Colorado shifted from “policy debates” to “policy mandates.”

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5. The Roadmaps: White Papers That Became Law Without a Vote

With HB19-1261 on the books, the Governor’s team produced the next building block:

2021 – The Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap

This document said openly:

Hitting the climate goals will require “actions, laws, and policies beyond those Colorado has taken already.”

It mapped out exactly how to embed climate objectives into transportation, land use, energy, and nearly every sector.

And surprise:
Those “recommendations” quickly became bills, rules, and regulations.

2024 – Roadmap 2.0

Even after all of the above, major environmental groups said Polis’s updated roadmap “still doesn’t go far enough.”

They warned the state is likely to miss the 2025 GHG goal and needs even stronger rules.

This dynamic matters:

• Polis moves policy left.
• Advocacy groups accuse him of not going far enough.
• The state then moves even further left to appease them.
• Repeat.

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6. SB21-260: The Turning Point in Transportation

This 2021 bill, SB21-260, didn’t just add new fees to gas, diesel, and deliveries. It did something bigger:

It tied transportation funding to climate policy.

And it instructed CDOT to write the rule that would become the GHG Transportation Planning Standard.

SB21-260 is projected to generate $5.3 to $5.4 billion over a decade – much of it locked into climate-driven enterprises.

It created:

• The Clean Transit Enterprise
• The Community Access Enterprise
• The Nonattainment Area Air Pollution Mitigation Enterprise
• And others – Read Grift for Polis’ enviro buddies.

For the first time, funding and GHG policy were welded together.

This is central planning through the back door.

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7. December 2021: The GHG Transportation Planning Standard – The Choke Collar

This is quietly one of the most consequential rules in modern Colorado history.

The Transportation Commission approved a rule requiring CDOT and the state’s MPOs to:

• Model greenhouse gas emissions from future transportation plans
• Meet specific GHG reduction levels
• Offset or mitigate projects that increase driving (VMT – vehicle miles travelled)
• Prioritize transit, infill, bike/ped, and mode shift
• Submit mitigation plans if goals aren’t met
• Risk funding restrictions if they fail compliance

This is the mechanism environmental advocacy groups dreamed of for years:

• Want to widen I-25?
• Want to improve freight corridors?
• Want to add lanes in growing counties?

You can – but only if it fits inside climate math.

This rule is why your highways look like they do.
This rule is why transit projects get accelerated while road expansions get complicated or delayed.

This rule is how climate targets now govern infrastructure.

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8. 2024: SB24-230 – The “Compromise” That Redirects Oil Money Into Transit

Later came SB24-230, the so-called “compromise” between the oil and gas industry and Polis’ ecgo terrorist legislators/buddies:

• New production fees on oil and gas (about 0.5% at typical prices)
• Estimated $100–175 million per year
• A majority routed into transit and rail, especially RTD-area transit via the Clean Transit Enterprise

This is money generated largely in counties like Weld.
Now earmarked permanently for transit-heavy, urban, Front Range corridors.

It’s a redistribution of economic fuel – literally.

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9. 2024: Renewable Energy Siting – The Next Front

SB24-212 requires the Colorado Energy Office to evaluate whether local governments are “blocking” renewable energy siting, and to report back to the legislature by 2025. Guess what they found? They think local governments are – another place for Polis and crowd to shift the blame. “Gees, the only reason we’re not hitting our (arbitrarily set) GHG goals is because of those nasty local governments. We’d better take their land use authority.” Guess what’s coming this next legislative session…

Depending on how that report is framed, it will lay the groundwork for:

• State pre-emption of local land-use authority
• A mandate to approve renewable projects
• Further stripping of county authority

Exactly as I described:
“If locals aren’t meeting state climate goals → the state must take over.”

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10. Weld County Fights Back – But the State Moves the Goalposts

In 2019, Weld did the rare thing counties almost never do:

• Enacted 1041 authority
• Stood up its own Oil & Gas Energy Department
• Created its own permitting, expertise, and regulatory apparatus

But when a statewide machine is built around GHG mandates, Roadmaps, and state commissions, local authority – even when legitimately exercised – can be overwhelmed, ignored, or bypassed.

This is the heart of the story:

**Colorado didn’t lose local control.

It was quietly absorbed by a centralized climate bureaucracy.**

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Putting It Together – The Playbook

When you line up all these pieces chronologically, the pattern becomes crystal clear:

1. Voters reject Prop 112.
2. SB19-181 passes anyway, enabling de facto local bans.
3. HB19-1261 sets climate targets into law.
4. Roadmap 2021 lays out the plan to reshape everything around GHG.
5. SB21-260 creates funding streams and climate enterprises.
6. GHG Transportation Planning Standard turns climate math into transportation control.
7. Roadmap 2.0 says “still not enough.”
8. SB24-230 redirects oil and gas revenue into transit.
9. SB24-212 positions the state to override local renewable siting decisions.

This is not chaos.
This is not coincidence.
This is a system.

And if people feel like Colorado suddenly works differently than the one they grew up in – it’s because it does.

But it didn’t happen suddenly.

It happened step by step, bill by bill, rule by rule, “roadmap” by “roadmap.”

This is how Colorado got quietly rewired.

WHAT PART 1 SHOWS, AND WHERE WE GO NEXT

If Part 1 makes one thing clear, it’s this: Colorado didn’t drift into its current philosophy. It was steered there – deliberately, consistently, and often quietly. From energy to transportation to land use, the state’s regulatory framework now bends toward a single priority: meeting greenhouse-gas targets, even when the cost is mobility, affordability, or local control.

But this is only the beginning.

• Part 2 will explain the single most quietly consequential rule in modern Colorado history – the GHG Transportation Planning Standard – and how it reshaped every highway project in the state.
• Part 3 will walk you through the advocacy–industrial complex that feeds and reinforces this system.
• Part 4 will show how “public comment” has been captured and choreographed.
• Part 5 will bring it back to real people — the Weld County families, workers, commuters, ranchers, small businesses, and communities living with the consequences.

Yesterday was emotion.
Today is evidence.
And over the next several days, we’re going all the way down the rabbit hole – calmly, clearly, and with the receipts every step of the way.

Bibliography (Just in case you want the links)

Prop 112 (2018 ballot):
https://ballotpedia.org/Colorado_Proposition_112%2C_Minimum_Distance_Requirements_for_New_Oil%2C_Gas%2C_and_Fracking_Projects_Initiative_(2018)

SB19-181 full text (signed bill PDF):
https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2019a_181_signed.pdf

SB19-181 overview / business-side summary:
https://www.gibsondunn.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/colorado-passes-sweeping-new-law-to-alter-the-state-oil-and-gas-regulatory-framework.pdf

HB19-1261 (Climate Action Plan to Reduce Pollution):
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb19-1261

Colorado GHG Pollution Reduction Roadmap (2021):
https://spl.cde.state.co.us/artemis/govmonos/gov112g832021internet/

GHG Roadmap 2.0 “What they’re saying” (Governor/advocates reactions):
https://governorsoffice.colorado.gov/governor/news/what-theyre-saying-greenhouse-gas-pollution-reduction-roadmap-20

SB21-260 bill summary:
https://leg.colorado.gov/sb21-260-bill-summary

SB21-260 case study (fees, $5.3-5.4B, enterprises):
https://transportationinvestment.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/CO-Case-Study-FINAL.pdf

CDOT GHG Transportation Planning Standard page:
https://www.codot.gov/programs/environmental/greenhousegas

CDOT fact sheet on the GHG Standard:
https://www.codot.gov/programs/environmental/greenhousegas/assets/ghg-standard-fact-sheet.pdf

Colorado Carbon Reduction Strategy (explains GHG Standard + Roadmap):
https://www.codot.gov/programs/environmental/greenhousegas/assets/colorado-carbon-reduction-strategy-repaired.pdf

SB24-230 overview:
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-230

SB24-230 enrolled bill (full text):
https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/2024a_230_enr.pdf

Clean Transit Enterprise explainer (notes SB24-230 production fee):
https://www.codot.gov/programs/innovativemobility/cte

Colorado Health Institute recap noting SB 230 oil & gas transit fees:
https://www.coloradohealthinstitute.org/research/2024-legislation-review

SB24-212 renewable siting report requirement:
https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2024A/bills/2024a_212_eng.pdf