Because basketball was over for the night, and hockey was over for the night, and because I have no life, I flipped over to the Rockies late Tuesday, tied 2-2 going into the 11th with the Cubs.
Our Rox promptly went up 3-2 in their top of the inning. Chicago Hope? Absolutely not, and I wasn’t fooled for a second. The Cubs got a couple of bloop hits, and the Rox seemed outraged that Major League Baseball allows other teams to steal bases. Suddenly it was tied, and two bites of a Chicago dog later, the Cubs walked off with a 4-3 win.
A friend pointed out it was the Rockies’ 21st straight series loss, setting a baseball record. They haven’t won a majority of games against a series opponent since September.
But I don’t want to leave you with that sour sports taste as we head into important environmental news. Let’s change focus to Coco Gauff, the great American tennis player who walked onto a spotlight court for her first round of the French Open, unzipped her bag, and realized she’d forgotten her rackets.
Gauff laughed, jokingly blamed her coach, sent a ball boy to the locker room for the loaded weapons, and promptly destroyed a resigned Olivia Gadecki 6-2, 6-2 in 71 minutes.
What I’m wishing for the Rockies, easily on pace for the worst baseball record in 125 years, is more Coco, and less gaffe. We’ve got four more months of this, folks. Here’s hoping the hard-working 20-somethings on the Rockies find a few laughs on their way into the wrong end of the record books.
Expert, humane leadership might help, and The Colorado Sun is looking for that kind of person to help guide our next years of growth. We’re hiring a chief operating officer, kind of like a baseball manager but preferably without all the sunflower seed shells. If you know someone qualified and interested, check out the listing here.
With our chins up, on to the news.
Michael Booth
Reporter
TEMP CHECK
CLEAN ENERGY
Fighting the feds on green energy
Wind turbines near Matheson are part of Xcel Energy’s 600-megawatt Rush Creek Wind Project, which uses 300 turbines to generate enough electricity to power 325,000 homes. (John Leyba, Special to The Colorado Sun)“The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of the state in that case, their decision was written by a justice who happened to have the name Gorsuch. Who’s now on the Supreme Court.”
— Colorado Energy Office CEO Will Toor
Mid-May in Washington, D.C., brought some loud Trump administration warning shots for states like Colorado, where majorities of voters have pushed for clean energy alternatives and action on climate change.
First, both the U.S. House and Senate voted to strip California — and states that have largely copied their rules — of the right to go further than EPA minimums in selling clean electric cars and trucks. Colorado’s Air Quality Control Commission renewed and expanded the state’s clean cars and trucks mandate in 2023. Those “waivers” to promote green energy are now dead unless revived in court challenges.
Second, the House forwarded to the Senate a budget that slashes most of the clean energy and climate change subsidies championed by the Biden and Obama administrations. If the Senate doesn’t restore the subsidies, building solar farms, buying EVs and other clean energy staples will be much more expensive.
So we asked Colorado’s electrification and clean energy czar, Colorado Energy Office CEO Will Toor, for his take on last week’s warning signs.
Sun: Do you have any confidence or comfort that the Senate will push to put back some of the important subsidies?
Toor: We are certainly hopeful that sort of cooler and wiser heads will prevail in the Senate than in the House. It was incredibly disappointing to see the extent to which many members of Congress took actions that will hurt their own constituents in their own districts, and drive up the cost of energy, drive up the cost of vehicles, drive up pollution and reduce manufacturing investment in their own districts.
Sun: What else can Colorado do to protect these policies that a significant progressive majority of voters for some time now have put into place, step by step?
Toor: We will continue to see progress moving forward in Colorado, if you look at our greenhouse gas roadmap and think about the major sources of pollution in the state: the electricity industry, oil and gas vehicles, manufacturing, and burning fossil fuel in buildings. The majority of actions in most of those sectors can be taken at the state level. The federal government can put wind in our sails, or can create headwinds on those actions. But in most cases, it is ultimately state decision-making. As a state, we are the ones who adopt the rules for electric resource planning and for the emission targets of our electric utilities. As the state, we are able to adopt the rules that regulate methane emissions from the oil and gas industry. We have the authority to move forward on programs like the clean heat plan requirements for gas utilities, and setting energy codes and building performance standards. So while there certainly are things that the federal government can do to raise costs for consumers, and create obstacles to economic development, in most areas I don’t think that they’re able to block state action.
Sun: There have been rumblings, or sometimes overt declarations, that the Trump administration will deputize the federal Department of Justice to go after states that have gone farther than federal law. Are you concerned about that, that these things you are saying should be under state control won’t actually be under our control?
Toor: If you look at the history of developing these programs in Colorado, whether it be legislation, regulatory requirement, state investment or state incentives for clean energy, they’ve all been very carefully crafted with a clear-eyed understanding of what the legal constraints are from federal law. And so I really don’t believe that the work we have done would be vulnerable to a legal attack by the administration or the Department of Justice. It’s interesting to me, if you go back in history and think about some of the really important steps that Colorado took on this journey, probably the first really big step was the adoption of the state renewable electricity portfolio standard that was challenged in federal court. There was a Commerce Clause argument made that this was unfair against state power suppliers. And the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of the state in that case, the decision was written by a justice who happened to have the name Gorsuch. Who’s now on the Supreme Court. That illustrates the kind of care that’s been taken, that even very conservative courts have upheld state policy, because it is crafted with a clear understanding of what the Constitution and the law allow.
Read more of our interview with Will Toor later this week, at ColoradoSun.com.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
BIG MAMMALS
Why did the bison cross the border? Because of the buffalo bill
A bison grazes at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)12
Number of wild bison wandering in from Utah that were killed by poachers in the past 10 years
American bison appear to have better PR agents than gray wolves.
While Coloradans continue to debate the wisdom of wolf reintroduction five years after a public authorization vote, bison that reintroduce themselves to the state by walking across the border from Utah just got the backing of Colorado law.
Before this year’s legislative session, Colorado law treated bison like livestock, and people could shoot the hulking visitors from Utah without consequence. State wildlife officials told a Senate committee that’s happened a dozen times over 10 years.
Senate Bill 53, signed by Gov. Jared Polis, switches the bison’s designation to big game animal, and makes shooting them a poaching offense. The bill also directs Colorado Parks and Wildlife to set up a licensing and hunting protocol for bison, similar to other big game species such as bighorn sheep, mountain lions or elk. There are no immediate plans to create a hunting season, given the small numbers, but the division wanted to be ready.
The Sierra Club and other animal defenders applauded the bill, saying far too many bison were slaughtered needlessly as white hunters and railroad employees wiped out more than 30 million of the valuable bovids in the late 1800s. The iconic signature animal, life support and cultural touchstone for many Native American tribes, dwindled to just a few hundred in the wild.
Populations are reviving, but mostly as captive demonstration herds or livestock raised for food on sprawling Western ranches. There are small herds for the public to see at Denver’s Genesee mountain park, and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge near DIA.
Utah’s northeastern Bookcliffs region hosts about 150 wild bison, and they sometimes wander in north of Interstate 70.
“In recent decades, efforts to restore bison on Tribal and public lands have gained momentum for their role as keystone species and in Tribal cultures,” the Sierra Club said in a release. “The Protect Wild Bison bill recognizes those values, and as Utah has shown, bison can live on the landscape and play an important role in restoring grassland ecosystems.”
Colorado ranchers like Dallas May, trying to restore resilient grassland habitat, say the hooves of the massive bison helped push seeds deep into soil and break up older, stagnant pasture.
“This is a really important animal to Colorado,” said primary sponsor Sen. Jessie Danielson, D-Wheat Ridge, at a March committee hearing on the bill.
“Bison have been key to our survival and spirit,” said Southern Ute Tribal Council member Andy Gallegos.
Ute tribes, however, wanted to add in protections for their current relationship with bison herds, where captive domestic bison on reservations are kept for meat, hides, bone tools and crafts, and spiritual ceremonies. Bison kept in domestic herds must remain classified as “livestock” so that tribes can be compensated from state funds if reintroduced gray wolves slaughter animals, leaders said.
Read more about the recent history of bison in Colorado — both home-raised and wandering versions — in the next week at coloradosun.com.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
WATER LEADERSHIP
Indigenous leadership arrives at key Colorado water board
Lorelei Cloud at the Los Pinos River on the Southern Ute Reservation. (Jeremy Wade Shockley, The Southern Ute Drum)“It’s a seat at the table that we’ve been wanting for such a long time, and it’s finally here.”
— Lorelei Cloud, newly installed Colorado Water Conservation Board chair
The 15 members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board used their annual elections May 21 to make history.
The conservation board, one of Colorado’s top water policy agencies, elected Southern Ute tribal member Lorelei Cloud to a one-year term as board chair, making her the first Indigenous person to hold the position since the board was formed in 1937. She also became the first known tribal member appointed to the board in 2023.
The new role is fairly bureaucratic: Cloud will run the board meetings, ensure fair voting and discussion, help coordinate meeting planning and represent the board as spokesperson when needed.
But for Cloud, it gives Indigenous people a long-sought seat at the table where water decisions are made.
“It’s part of the reconciliation that we’ve all been waiting for as Indigenous people, having an Indigenous person in a position that makes water management decisions,” Cloud said during the May 21 board meeting. “It’s a seat at the table that we’ve been wanting for such a long time, and it’s finally here. It’s a joyous moment.”
The state board sets water policy within Colorado, funds water projects statewide, and works on issues related to watershed protection, stream restoration, flood mitigation and drought planning.
Part of its job is also to protect Colorado’s water interests in dealings with other states, like the interstate water sharing agreements among seven states in the Colorado River Basin.
Decision-makers in the Colorado River Basin, however, have a history of excluding tribal nations that dates back to the 1922 Colorado River Compact.
Tribal water is an important factor in the basin’s future: The 30 basin tribes have claims to over 25% of the water supply, which currently serves 40 million people.
Tribal officials have been working to ensure they are part of decision-making going forward. For Cloud, the new role marks a step forward in that effort.
“We’re going to do great things over the next year,” Cloud said. “Colorado is making history today, and it’s truly the beginning of something new.”
Read more about Cloud’s new role at coloradosun.com.
Section by Shannon Mullane | Water Reporter
MORE ENVIRONMENT AND HEALTH NEWS
Big, beautiful new tax on EVs. The GOP’s “big, beautiful” budget bill includes a lot of fine print, and Inside Climate News found a hefty new federal tax on EVs that will layer on top of Colorado state taxes on EVs meant to replace lost gasoline tax revenues. The “fee” would be $250 a year on the federal level.— Inside Climate News Eastern vs. Western Slope in growing Shoshone water battle. It’s like kids complaining their parents favor one of them over the other. Front Range cities in need of water are trying to block state support for a Western Slope purchase of Colorado River water rights currently used by Xcel Energy to generate electricity. Shannon Mullane reports the rift is getting more contentious. Why growing Arctic wetlands are actually bad for Earth. Environmental advocates usually scramble to defend all wetlands, which are hugely important sources of biological diversity and nurturing. But global warming is creating the “bad” kinds of wetlands that weren’t supposed to be there at all, where natural decay creates methane and more global warming. Suncor’s late-2022 shutdown didn’t keep pollution out of neighborhoods, study says. When a big fire shut down Commerce City’s Suncor refinery for three months, neighbors tired of the pollution might have expected a break. Instead, an environmental groups report found, the oft-penalized refinery continued violating caps on toxic releases, and yet escaped fines because of a quirk in permitting.CHART OF THE WEEK
In this chart of worldwide clean vehicle sales, BEV means fully electric battery vehicles; PHEV means Plug-in Hybrid Electric, engines that have gasoline backup but a chargeable battery. Source: International Energy AgencyThe new Republican budget — subject to final negotiations with a largely agreeable Senate — marks a point in time to assess electric vehicles and the overall world car market. If U.S. subsidies are removed, will we backslide while the rest of the world rushes on to fully electric?
China apparently thinks so. As shown in the chart above, the government-goosed manufacturing goliaths there are churning out cheap and well-reviewed EVs at an accelerating rate.
Overall, EV sales in 2024 made up about 17 million of 85 million cars and light trucks purchased around the world. Or about 21%. Another visceral reaction: Europe is way behind.
Section by Michael Booth | Reporter
That’s a lot to take in. Feel free to clip and save for later, say during an 11th inning of the next Rockies series, at the Mets.
— Michael & John
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