The Denver Gazette reports that the U.S. Department of Justice has notified the U.S. District Court in Denver that it is considering filing a Statement of Interest in a lawsuit challenging Colorado’s and Denver’s building energy performance standards on federal preemption grounds. The notice says the federal government has questions about the preemptive scope of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which sets national efficiency standards for appliances and equipment and generally bars conflicting state and local requirements.
So Colorado’s climate-control freaks may finally be getting a federal flashlight shoved into the regulatory junk drawer. To be clear, DOJ has not sided with anyone yet. The case is not decided. But the fact that Washington is paying attention tells you something. Denver and Colorado have been marching around like every furnace, building, landlord, tenant, business owner, appliance, and utility bill is just another Lego in their climate cathedral. Now somebody may be asking whether they were even allowed to play emperor in the first place.
The Bullet Point Brief
- The lawsuit challenges Colorado and Denver building energy performance standards on federal preemption grounds. In normal-person English: the argument is that local and state regulators may have wandered into territory already governed by federal law.
- DOJ’s notice says it is considering weighing in because of questions about EPCA’s preemptive scope. That is lawyer-speak for "before Denver gets too cute with the rulebook, let’s check who actually has authority here."
- The Energy Policy and Conservation Act sets national efficiency standards for appliances and equipment and generally blocks states and localities from imposing conflicting requirements. Apparently, national standards are national. Wild concept. Alert the task force.
- This does not mean DOJ has delivered a final legal smackdown. It means the federal government sees enough smoke in the preemption question to consider showing up with a hose and a badge.
- The bigger issue is cost. Building energy mandates do not float harmlessly in the clouds. They land on owners, renters, businesses, builders, utilities, schools, nonprofits, and anyone else trying to keep the lights on without needing a compliance priest and a second mortgage.
My Bottom Line
Normal Coloradans are tired of being guinea pigs for expensive energy mandates cooked up by people who never personally eat the cost.
Denver and Colorado’s green bureaucracy loves soft language. Building performance. Efficiency. Standards. Climate goals. Compliance pathways. It all sounds very tidy until the bill lands on someone who owns a building, rents a storefront, manages apartments, runs a small business, or tries to keep housing costs from turning into a ski-town hostage note.
This is the arrogance. Local climate bureaucrats decided they could micromanage the built environment from the top down, then act stunned when someone asks whether they have the legal authority to do it. The same crowd that screams about federal overreach suddenly loves centralized mandates when they are the ones holding the clipboard.
And spare us the magic words. “Building performance” does not make costs disappear. It moves them. It moves them to landlords, who move them to tenants. It moves them to businesses, who move them to customers. It moves them to homeowners, renters, ratepayers, and eventually the same working families politicians claim to be protecting.
When your climate scheme is aggressive enough to attract federal preemption scrutiny, maybe the problem is not the lawsuit. Maybe the problem is the smug bastards who thought they could regulate the entire built environment and call the bill “progress.”
Source: The Denver Gazette
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