With skis strapped to their feet, the activists maneuvered around racing gates and through the grass and dirt on Aspen Mountain, where snow has mostly melted and the ski season closed weeks ago.

Micah Davis participates in the snowless ski race in Aspen on Saturday. (Image via 350.org)

The snowless ski race was held to demonstrate what the sport’s future could look like if the earth continues to warm.

“I am from New England where they just had one of their shortest winters in history following historic flooding brought on by weather extremes,” said racer Elle Noordzy. “I grew up skiing and in nearly two decades in southern New England I saw the impact of warmer winters, where we used to get feet of snow in a winter to almost none nowadays. And now my first winter in Colorado has again highlighted weather extremes with one of the worst snow years and record-breaking spring temperatures.”

Aspen has become a stage for the climate discussion.

There is buy-in from its business community, government officials and residents who have set goals to try to reduce their own carbon footprints. The Aspen Skiing Co., which helped organize the weekend’s climate-awareness activities along with 350.org, has been a leader in the industry, setting its green standard. As an influential member of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association, the ski company recently rallied other local business leaders who sit on the chamber’s board to drop its affiliation with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to protest the national group’s stance on climate change. Even former Vice President Al Gore’s scatological rant against climate change deniers last year took place in Aspen and drew national attention. And Aspen’s celebrity athletes have gone to the nation’s capitol, lobbying for stricter pollution controls.

“Climate change is already pounding businesses and communities, whether you’re a ski resort, an insurance agency, or a raft business,” said Auden Schendler, the Aspen Skiing Co.’s vice president of sustainability. “But people feel powerless about how to drive change. On Saturday we made a statement elected officials have to listen to, and similar events happened all over the globe.”

To connect the dots between climate change and its impacts, attendees in Aspen wore white clothing to symbolize the missing snow and they formed a “dot” on the ski mountain. Other human “dots” were created in oceans and on land around the world Saturday to spread the climate message.

A recent Yale University poll in the U.S. found that concern about climate change was increasing with more extreme weather and warmer temperatures. According to the research, 82 percent of Americans report that they personally experienced one or more types of extreme weather or a natural disaster in the past year. Meanwhile, nightly news coverage of climate change on the major TV networks decreased 72 percent between 2009 and 2011, according to Media Matters for America.
 
“Most people in the country are looking at everything that’s happened; it just seems to be one disaster after another after another,” Anthony A. Leiserowitz of Yale University, one of the researchers who commissioned the poll, told the New York Times. “People are starting to connect the dots.”
 

U.S. Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., introduced the WEST Act last week, extolling it as a job generator. In an op-ed he wrote Monday for the St. George News, Hatch lauded oil and gas drilling as nirvana on earth, a slam-dunk way to jump-start employment in the region.

“Job creation and energy production is typically a match made in Heaven in Utah and other western states. They are a perfect complement – much like former Jazzmen Karl Malone and John Stockton were in their heyday,” the senator wrote.

But not everyone is jumping up from their seats, hooting and hollering in favor of hydraulic fracturing.

Gathered concentrated oil burns during a controlled oil fire in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. The U.S. Coast Guard worked in partnership with BP, local residents, and other agencies to conduct this "in-situ burn" to aid in preventing the spread of oil following the April 20 explosion on Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Deepwater Horizon. (U.S. Navy photo)

“The WEST Act is not aligned with the conservation values of the American people,” said Emily Diamond-Falk, communications manager for The Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C. “In a recent Colorado College survey, a majority of independent voters across the West said that they were in favor of ‘reducing our need for more coal, oil and gas by expanding our use of clean, renewable energy that can be generated in the United States. The same poll found that voters were in strong agreement that ‘our national parks, forests, monuments and wildlife areas are an essential part of your state’s economy.’ It appears that the WEST ACT is an effort to open our shared public lands and waters to industrial development and pollution.”

The bills bundled into the WEST Act include the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, or H.R. 2021, which was cited in a report commissioned by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Howard Berman, D-Calif., late last year that called the Republican-led 112th Congress “the most anti-environment House in U.S. history.” The legislation would upend the Supreme Court’s decision that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The bill also prohibits the EPA from collecting emissions information.

The WEST Act would undermine the Clean Air Act in a multitude of ways. It includes the so-called Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, which would cast doubt on the EPA’s ability to regulate coarse particulate matter from mining and extraction industries, or dust that contains arsenic or other heavy metals, or dust that substantially harms public health by other means. U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, both D-Colo., have been vocal in their skepticism of the bills’ intentions.

The WEST ACT would additionally include the expedited consideration of permits to drill in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia and end what Republicans say is the Obama administration’s de facto moratorium on new offshore drilling. The Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act, or H.R. 1230, and The Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act, H.R. 1231, are the House versions of the legislation now in the WEST ACT.

According to Hatch’s editorial, the WEST ACT would also “end the confusion and uncertainty in the EPA’s decision-making process for air permits, which is delaying energy exploration in Utah and across America, including in the Alaskan Outer Continental Shelf, a project expected to create 50,000 jobs and produce 1 million barrels of oil per day.”

Barrasso said the GOP has laid out a clear path to energy security and job creation.

“For too long, the Obama administration’s anti-American energy policies have strangled western job creators,” he said. “By removing harmful EPA and public lands regulations, our legislation encourages American energy production and economic growth.”

In reality, drilling has reached its highest level under President Obama than at any point since the Reagan administration. Domestic oil production hit an eight-year high in 2011, and natural gas production hit an all-time high that year.

But Auden Schendler, the Aspen Skiing Co.’s vice president of sustainability, believes the famous Rocky Mountain hamlet’s stature may bring more scrutiny to the U.S. Chamber’s right-wing agenda.

“Homer was a unique story, but Aspen is an even more high-profile town with often outsized influence,” Schendler said Thursday. “It’s the iconic ski town that often sets an example for others.”

At a retreat this week, the Aspen Chamber Resort Association’s board voted 11 to 1 to withdraw its membership from the national organization. Tension between Aspen’s chamber and the national one existed for years. The 680-member local chamber penned a letter to the national group in 2010 delineating its differences. But this year — which saw the driest winter in Aspen since the 1976-1977 season — politics are in overdrive thanks to the coming November general election. Several weeks ago, Aspen’s chamber began feeling pressure from Schendler and his Aspen Skiing Co. bosses, the mayor, a pair of county commissioners and residents who had had enough of the local chamber’s affiliation with the right-wing U.S. Chamber and its obstruction of solutions to climate change.

Climate activists spell out the words "Save Snow" on Aspen Mountain in 2009. (Image via 350.org)

“After a substantive and productive debate, the board ultimately decided that because the ACRA’s mission is to be the unifying voice for and reflect the core values of our local business community and reflect their core values, it is important its own affiliations are in line with the city, the county, and the majority of business owners’ views,” according to minutes from the Aspen Chamber Resort Association retreat. “An association with the U.S. Chamber, which so vigorously opposes important energy reform, is out of that alignment.”

The local chamber’s recap continued: “Aspen’s economy is inextricably tied to the future of the global climate and all area entities have deeply embraced the idea of reducing our carbon footprint. With our resignation from the U.S. Chamber, the ACRA shows its solidarity with this position.”

Blair Latoff, senior director of communications for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C, said the national group worked closely with the Aspen Chamber Resort Association for years on a variety of pro-business and pro-jobs issues, including immigration, transportation and tourism.

A survey released just last month showed that 77 percent of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association’s membership supported the U.S. Chamber and voted to remain affiliated with it, Latoff noted.

“It’s unfortunate that rather than working to establish a path forward, select members of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association Board chose to politicize their departure to benefit their own agenda,” he said. “The U.S. Chamber works with thousands of state and local chambers across the country and will continue to partner on the issues that impact job creators and our country’s economic recovery.”

Debbie Braun, president of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association, said the local group had been with the national one since 2005 and that its membership will expire at the end of this month.

“I have heard from some of my U.S. Chamber contacts and they of course are sad to see us go,” Braun wrote in an email. “It is to be determined if other chambers will follow our lead.”

Private businesses such as Nike and Apple dropped their memberships a few years ago to protest the U.S. Chamber’s efforts to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from tracking carbon dioxide and other emissions. For similar reasons, in 2009, San Francisco’s chamber of commerce — the 10th largest in the country — withdrew its membership from the U.S. Chamber’s federation partnership program but retained its membership with the U.S. Chamber. Since then, nearly 60 chambers have publicly denounced the U.S. Chamber’s politics or ended their memberships.

Now that Aspen is all-in in its protest, it remains to be seen if other community chambers will do the same. At least one of the leading voices in the debate believes Aspen will make a difference.

“It’s a press magnet,” Schendler said. “It’s home to wealthy and influential residents and guests. So when Aspen makes a move like this, others, and the U.S. Chamber in particular, know the message is not lost in the ether, but instead gets out to captains of industry, celebrities, and other high-leverage people. Aspen isn’t the center of the universe, and I don’t mean to overemphasize its importance.

“But the place has traction and influence,” he said, “it just does.”

Anti-fracking demonstrators in Boulder this week. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“The Task Force discussed jurisdictional issues regarding substantive regulations but determined that drawing bright lines between state and local jurisdictional authority was neither realistic nor productive,” the task force wrote in the report’s cover letter.

There is still much work to be done. The task force report didn’t address key issues such as whether the minimum distance between drilling and residences and schools should be expanded.

A number of communities are drafting new land-use regulations to better mitigate the impacts of energy exploration but Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission sent letters to them warning that local laws could conflict with state laws.

State rules currently call for drilling setbacks of 150 feet in rural areas and 350 feet in urban areas.

Michael Freeman, an attorney for Earth Justice, said state officials were supposed to begin discussing improved setbacks in 2009. He said he was pleased there is a hearing today on the setback issue, which isn’t likely to be resolved soon. Another overdue issue, he added, is how drillers clean up after themselves. Colorado has a ways to go to increase public confidence in the state’s ability to regulate oil and gas. A recent report called the state’s regulatory system “inadequate” and soft on polluters.

“There are still a lot of issues that have to be dealt with to make sure public health is protected,” Freeman said.

The Colorado Environmental Coalition’s Charlie Montgomery called the task force’s report “really constructive.” He said continued attention to industrial pressures put on residential areas, such as Battlement Mesa on the Western Slope and Erie and Longmont on the Front Range, is critical.

COGCC, which its critics contend is too cozy with industry, is charged with both promoting the extraction business and with protecting against its negative impacts on health and environment.

“We just have to figure out what we can do to try to really do the best job protecting schools, neighborhoods, houses when drilling and fracking is coming in really close to where people live,” Montgomery said.

Hydraulic fracturing — aka “fracking” in which water, sand and chemicals are flushed into holes drilled into the earth to break up shale rock and release oil and gas deposits — has ushered in a new era of domestic energy exploration as well as concerns about its impacts on public health and the environment. There have been concerns fracking can contaminate groundwater, and it releases methane — a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide — into the atmosphere.

Studies show the injection of fracking wastewater into disposal wells can also trigger earthquakes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the first national standards to curb fracking’s air pollutants Wednesday. The rules will, beginning in 2015, require all oil and gas companies to capture smog-forming volatile organic compounds that are emitted during the final stages of well construction. The national standards are similar to regulations Colorado and Wyoming already have in place. In other states, those gases are currently released into the atmosphere or burned in a flaring process.

“The EPA’s new standards to reduce air pollution utilize existing technology and are a responsible step towards enforcing the Clean Air Act and protecting the air we breathe,” U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, said in prepared statement. “I look forward to working with the administration, my congressional colleagues and other stakeholders on other initiatives – like my FRAC Act – to improve the safety and efficacy of natural gas extraction and development.”

Colorado’s oil-and-gas task force convened on March 9 and met once per week through April. Officials said they received 1,600 public comments. Here are the task force’s recommendations:

· Encouraging local governments to designate a Local Government Designee (LGD) and to participate in the COGCC’s LGD program. Encourage LGDs to communicate industry proposals and issues with local elected officials and the public as soon as possible. However, if there is no LGD, then the municipal or county clerk may be the contact for a local jurisdiction. Providing strong encouragement to oil and gas operators to engage local government officials and the public as early in the COGCC permitting process as possible to solicit input. Initial outreach to the LGDs should occur before the application for permit to drill is filed with the COGCC. Issues to be addressed will vary site-by-site.

· Informing LGDs of opportunity to request additional 10 days to review permits and to request assistance from Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). COGCC shall inform LGDs if formal consultation with CDPHE or CPW is to occur on a drilling permit application.

· Taking actions to ensure that the two new LGD liaisons at COGCC will be effective in working with local governments, oil and gas operators, and the public.

· Providing for a mutual understanding of oil and gas industry and local government practices by facilitating distribution of accurate information. Local governments, oil and gas operators, and COGCC should collaborate to, for example, identify the potential development impacts, duration of drilling operations, and proposed mitigation to protect public health, safety, welfare and the environment.

· Formalizing and promote opportunities for technical training of LGDs and other training/briefings for the general public. This should include annual training for new LGDs and periodic work sessions for LGDs or local government entities, based on need.

· Providing general education presentations in community forums, covering the entire state periodically.

· Local governments and operators should consider using an Memorandum of Understanding and/or Intergovernmental Agreement, as appropriate, to address issues of local concern (e.g. standard conditions of approval, public outreach, etc.).

· Promoting opportunity for COGCC staff to obtain information regarding local government process and requirements, as appropriate. Local governments are encouraged to notify COGCC early in the process of developing local regulations.

In a letter to Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell on Thursday, the senator wrote he “is unconvinced the USFS’s current air tanker fleet is prepared to adequately address an immense wildfire or even what is sure to be a long fire season.”

Drought, squirrelly winds and a pine beetle epidemic have left many parts of the West susceptible to wildfires. Firefighters have already sprung into action. In Colorado, a prescribed burn that unexpectedly reignited killed three residents near Conifer. More than 15,000 heat records fell nationwide in what was an especially dry and toasty March. With about 98 percent of Colorado in a drought, many experts warn this year has the potential to be the busiest fire season in a decade.

A tanker drops retardant on an Arizona fire in June 2011. (Photo by Kari Greer)

“As you know, the Lower North Fork Fire already burned 4,100 acres in a fast-moving wildfire that took the lives of three Coloradans this year,” Udall wrote. “While I applaud the remarkable work of the wildland firefighters, I have larger concerns about our capacity to respond to future fires, particularly with many aircraft in the air tanker fleet nearing the final years of their lifespan.”

In a strategy statement sent to Congress in February, the Forest Service reported that it expects 10 of its 11 air tankers to be retired by 2021. At that time, Tidwell noted the agency’s existing fleet is inadequate and it plans to purchase faster planes that can carry bigger loads across longer distances.

Climate change is making life for foresters difficult, Tidwell said last month.

“We’ve been doing research on the effects of a changing climate to the vegetation on our nation’s forests for over two decades,” he told the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources. “When it comes to fire, we’re definitely seeing much longer fire seasons in many parts of the country, another 60 or 70 days longer than what we used to experience.”

Udall has regularly used his position on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to try to secure resources to address wildfire threats and the bark beetle epidemic that is plaguing the West. Last year, he asked for a study of the 2010 Fourmile Canyon Fire in Boulder County that found air tankers were an essential tool in effectively fighting the fire.

Here is his letter to Tidwell:

Dear Chief Tidwell,

With 98 percent of Colorado under drought conditions and the fire season tragically having started early this year, I write regarding my growing concerns with the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) aging air tanker fleet.

As you know, the Lower North Fork Fire already burned 4,100 acres in a fast-moving wildfire that took the lives of three Coloradans this year. While I applaud the remarkable work of the wildland firefighters, I have larger concerns about our capacity to respond to future fires, particularly with many aircraft in the air tanker fleet nearing the final years of their lifespan.

Though air tankers are only one part of the wildfire-response effort, they play a critical role in the initial attack.  With an aging fleet that has dwindled from 44 air tankers in 2002 to 11 this year, and will continue to decline in the years to come, I am unconvinced the USFS’s current air tanker fleet is prepared to adequately address an immense wildfire or even what is sure to be a long fire season. Given the very real and present danger of wildfire in Colorado and throughout the drought-ridden West, and the very possible event of multiple wildfires in different parts of the country, an aging fleet may be ill-prepared to respond with the necessary air support.

Again, I appreciate the attention USFS has already paid to this critical issue, but it is essential that the USFS be prepared today for a fire season that is already looming large in Colorado. I stand ready to work with you to do whatever is necessary to protect our capacity to fight fire and ensure the safety of Coloradans.

Sincerely,
Mark Udall

Latinos in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico marked the 85th anniversary of César Chávez’s birthday with a new song, or corrido, that asks policymakers to protect the river.

The Colorado River winds through Westwater Canyon in Utah. (Photo by Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism)

Chávez did much of his life’s work organizing farmworkers in Colorado River basin states. Latinos have relied on the waterway and its tributaries to drink, farm and recreate since the 16th century when it provided sustenance, navigation and transportation for Spanish conquistadors.

Over the centuries, the river has lost much of its might. It no longer spills into the Gulf of California but instead dries up in a dusty wasteland in Mexico. Climate change, drought, unrelenting urban demand and stepped-up oil and gas exploration are all contributing to the Colorado River’s decline.

Nuestro Rio is calling on lawmakers and utility companies to raise the river’s water flows.

“The Latino voice, heritage and economic component of the Colorado River are a big part of [its] story,” U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Anne Castle said at a Denver event Thursday. “The river provides millions of jobs from the headwaters to the delta. There is more demand than supply right now. We are analyzing the best solutions to correct the imbalance.”

The United States and Mexico are in negotiations over a new allocation agreement for the river. A coalition of conservation groups in the Southwest delivered more than 5,000 signatures to the U.S. Department of State this week, also urging officials to restore flows to the Colorado River Delta.

Nuestro Rio is emphasizing three broad strategies to better protect the Colorado River:
 

Improve Urban Conservation: If the efficiency of urban water use can continue to be improved by just one percent per year, significant water savings will be realized at very low cost. Municipal utilities have already been improving at this rate for the last two decades. As technology improves and know-how spreads, the toolbox available to utilities continues to expand.

Improve Agricultural Efficiency: About 70 percent of the water consumed from the Colorado River and its tributaries goes to agricultural use. Both the long-term health of the Colorado River and the viability of farms, ranches and rural communities in the Southwest depend on helping agricultural water users become more efficient.

Establish Water Banks: “Water banks” use markets to facilitate temporary or permanent transfer of water rights among water users, thereby moving water to where it is needed most. This can benefit the Colorado River because it reduces the need for new water diversions from the river, and banked water can be used for any uses, including protecting the environmental health of the river.
 

The Centennial State faces water supply challenges, more frequent and intense storms, increased flooding and detriment to fish and wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council analysis (pdf) notes. Yet the report ranks Colorado among a dozen states in its second tier of climate change readiness, trailing overall leader California as well as Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington, which are better preparing for impacts on water.

(Courtesy of NOAA)

In Colorado and numerous other states where snow-covered slopes equate to an influx of tourist dollars, ski resorts are closing earlier than usual this year, plagued by muddy, grassy terrain. Colorado State University climatologists say 98 percent of the state is experiencing varying levels of drought.

“The potential economic impacts to the state from climate change are significant,” the Natural Resources Defense Council report states. “In 2007, winter recreation alone contributed nearly $2 billion to the Colorado economy. Warmer temperatures could lead to less snow and a shortening of the ski season. In fact, a 2006 study projected a loss of 43 percent to 82 percent in April snowpack for Colorado counties with ski resorts by the end of the 21st century.”

Escalating temperatures and dwindling water supplies are projected to intensify, according to the report, and together they will put the state’s $5.5 billion agricultural industry in jeopardy. This spring, the oil and gas industry outbid farmers at Colorado’s premier auction for unallocated water.

Meanwhile, the extended drought is fueling a wildfire season that has gotten off to an early start. Last month’s dry conditions have been compared to April 2002, which triggered massive fires across the state. The unusually warm winter is raising the specter of the worst wildfire season in a decade.

It was a scorcher of a winter for many of the lower 48 states. Twenty-five of them, all east of the Rockies, recorded their warmest first quarters ever, and another 16 states ranked it among their 10 hottest. It was the warmest January through March ever for Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Alaska was the exception to the rule. It had its ninth-coolest January-March period, with temperatures 5.2 degrees below average, NOAA reported. The Last Frontier was slammed with snow this winter.

The Natural Resources Defense Council noted that Colorado released a climate action plan in 2007 that set statewide greenhouse gas emissions goals of 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

“Colorado should implement concrete measures to achieve these pollution reduction goals and lessen the state’s contribution to climate change,” the report states.

The Colorado Flood Hazard Mitigation Plan does not include climate change considerations, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, which noted other shortcomings.

“While the Water Conservation Act of 2004 requires all water retailers that sell at least 2,000 acre-feet annually to submit a water conservation plan to the [Colorado Water Conservation Board] for approval, only slightly more than half of these retailers have done so,” the report states. “This relatively poor compliance rate indicates that many water retailers lack the capacity to develop conservation plans and/or the state is lacking in its enforcement of this provision.”

The report adds: “Colorado should make it a priority to include climate change in future water planning efforts for other river basins in the state beyond just the Colorado River Basin.”

About 98 percent of the state is experiencing varying levels of drought, Colorado State University climatologists confirmed this week, noting the Arkansas and Rio Grande river basins are especially dry, as are areas in the central and northwestern mountains due to an unusually lean snowpack.

“Right now the drought situation looks pretty ugly,” said Ken Neubecker, director of the Carbondale-based Western Rivers Institute. “It’s worse right now here in the Roaring Fork Valley than it was in 2002 and that was a pretty bad year for fires.”

Law enforcement agencies are investigating the Colorado State Forest Service’s handling of the prescribed burn that officials admit reignited unexpectedly and sparked the deadly Lower North Fork blaze in Jefferson County. Gov. John Hickenlooper has also convened a four-person review board led by Bill Bass, a 35-year veteran of the U.S. Forest Service, to examine details of the tragedy.

“Wildfire season usually starts much later in the year in Colorado, and this could very well turn out to be one of the worst,” U.S. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado, said in a prepared statement issued after he toured the fire wreckage Friday. “The dry and gusty conditions that have fueled this fire and others that have broken out around the state are warning signs that it may be a very long firefighting season.”

As the earth warms, climatologists say extreme weather events are to be expected. Floods, wildfires, hurricanes, droughts and heavy, wet snow dumps are all more likely in the years to come, they say.

“In my mind, this drought is definitely linked to climate change,” Neubecker said.

The Lower North Fork Fire (Image courtesy of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office)

The snowpack at most of Colorado’s ski areas is thin, forcing several resorts to shut down earlier than usual this year as brown grass overtakes white snow on lower-lying slopes. The same is true for many ski resorts across the nation outside of Alaska, which has been slammed with copious deposits of snow this winter.

There is ample time for some parts of the state to absorb enough moisture and lower the risk of fire, experts note. But they say April 2002 was similar to March of this year. And that’s ominous news when you consider that a decade ago Colorado braved the most destructive fire season on record.

“It’s pretty early for the snowpack to be melting,” said Wendy Ryan, a research associate in Colorado State University’s Climate Center. “We’ve seen stream flows come up, which is not normal for this time of year. To exacerbate things, we had one of the warmest and driest Marches on record.”

In Fort Collins, last month was the first March in 124 years with no measurable precipitation.

“Wildfire is definitely something we have to worry about in Colorado. It’s not always associated with drought, but in this case we can definitely point to short-term dryness that is leading to fires,” she said.

The National Interagency Fire Center’s most recent report (pdf) shows many parts of the nation are susceptible to conflagrations this year. Low levels of precipitation are forecast over portions of the Rocky Mountains, the report states, and above-normal temperatures are likely across most of the Southwest and Great Basin, and the Gulf and East Coast states from Texas to Maine through July.

“Above-normal significant fire potential is forecast over portions of the Rocky Mountain Area during April, mainly during the early portion of the month. … Although precipitation opportunities are expected as well, amounts are not anticipated to be enough to compensate for the abnormally dry and warm conditions that have depleted snowpack and stunted greenup thus far,” the report says.

Increased fire danger is expected to reemerge in western Colorado in June and July, the report said.

Sen. Udall is stressing the following three points for Coloradans this spring and summer:

Recreate Responsibly: Err on the side of caution. Don’t leave campfires unattended, think before doing anything that could cause a spark in the backcountry and avoid outdoor burning. Be aware of fire risk by watching for posted warnings, and take responsibility for obeying restrictions in your area.

Prepare Your Property for Fire: If you live in a high-risk area, you can take precautionary steps to protect your homes from fire, such as installing fire-resistant roofing and creating defensible space around your home, including carefully storing firewood and other flammable objects. Remember, the most important tool is not a chainsaw; it is a rake and a weed-wacker to remove things like pine needles and grasses from your home and deck.

Prepare in Advance for An Evacuation: Hundreds of homes have already been evacuated early in this season, and it can be a harrowing process. Families can cut down on stress by implementing an evacuation plan that ensures the safety of people and essential belongings. If you have neighbors who are elderly or have special needs, consider them in your plans too.

In a 31-page ruling (pdf), U.S. District Judge Amy B. Jackson concluded the Federal Election Commission overreached its authority in 2007 when it began allowing corporations and nonprofits to conceal the identities behind groups that fund “electioneering communications,” or advertisements that don’t expressly advocate for or against a political candidate running for federal office.

U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Image: Campus Progress via Flickr)

The ruling could deal a blow to non-profits such as Americans for Prosperity and the American Energy Alliance that are linked to the Koch brothers, a pair of conservative billionaire oil tycoons who advocate for the dismantling of public education and the evisceration of environmental laws as we know them.

Another group Jackson’s ruling might impact is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which in last year’s midterm election engineered one of the largest ad campaigns using secret corporate money. Ever since Thomas Donohue took the reins in 1997, the U.S. Chamber has been part of the Republican election machine. The group’s aggressive politicking has caused smaller chambers to drop their memberships. In Colorado, there are calls for the Aspen Chamber Resort Association to end its affiliation with the U.S. Chamber because the national group lobbies against climate legislation.

President Obama has considered issuing an executive order to require all would-be federal contractors to disclose direct and indirect political spending of more than $5,000. Bruce Josten, a lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber, blasted the president in the New York Times, saying his business bloc “is not going to tolerate” any White House attempt to stop anonymous corporate spending.

But the U.S. Chamber, the Koch brothers and the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS, which has spent millions of dollars running anti-Democrat ads this election cycle, must listen to the courts.

University of California-Irvine law professor Rick Hasen said it is unclear what might happen next. He laid out the following possibilities (noting there could be more) on his widely read Election Law Blog:

1. The FEC will appeal, and the appellate court will reverse.
2. The FEC does not appeal, and tries very quickly to get new regulations out.
3. The FEC does not appeal, and gets no new regulations out, leading to questions, and possibly a request for an advisory opinion on what these groups must now disclose as to their contributors. The FEC could well deadlock on this question.
4. Groups will ignore the language of the statute, and reform groups will file complaints at the FEC against them for failing to disclose their contributors.
5. Someone will file a new suit in federal court claiming that the statute, as now construed by the court, violates the First Amendment speech and associational rights of contributors to these organizations.

Ken Gordon, former Senate majority leader in Colorado and current director of CleanSlateNow.org, said complaints can now be filed with the FEC requesting the source of funds for political ads.

“But the problem is the FEC has been hopelessly deadlocked on doing anything of substance because there are three Democrats and three Republicans on its six-person board,” he noted.

Still, Gordon said the ruling is a move in the right direction.

“I’m pleased with this decision and I hope it stands up in the federal appeals process,” he said. “The Supreme Court has always upheld disclosure rules so it may get a friendly ruling there.”

The FEC rules in 2007 essentially upended part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Then in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the floodgates for political ads that are secretly funded by corporations and interest groups.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the percentage of outside undisclosed spending in U.S. elections spiked from 1 percent in 2006 to 43.8 percent in 2010.

“The FEC must get new rules in place promptly to ensure that outside spenders making electioneering communications disclose the donors funding these campaign-related expenditures,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of campaign finance watchdog group Democracy 21, which backed Van Hollen.

Residents here aren’t sure whether to ski or golf.

But most of them are certain of one thing: Climate change is not a hoax.

The Aspen Skiing Co., the mayor, a pair of county commissioners and many residents in town are pressuring the Aspen Chamber Resort Association to quit paying dues and divorce itself from the U.S. Chamber, which has aggressively lobbied against climate legislation over the years. The 680-member local chamber wrote a letter to the national group in 2010 delineating its political differences, but the debate this ski season — the driest one here since 1976-1977 — has become far more heated.

A skier negotiates Corkscrew run on Aspen Mountain over the weekend. The run is one of many to close this week due to a lack of snow. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

Other small chambers have left the national chamber but none in Colorado or with Aspen’s profile.

For now, the Aspen chamber won’t be defecting. Officials say that while they fundamentally disagree with the U.S. Chamber’s stance on climate legislation, they still value the group’s administrative services.

Winter didn’t stick around long in these parts. It arrived late and left early.

Colorado’s snowpack is 59 percent of the average, according to a Denver-based National Resources Conservation Service report on Wednesday. Grass has overtaken the lower sections of many slopes, forcing ski patrollers to rope off much of the terrain earlier than usual this year. It’s T-shirt weather.

Record temperatures east of the Continental Divide are shuttering resorts across the country. Several ski areas in Vermont, New Hampshire, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, North Dakota, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin have already closed for the season.

This year’s snow-starved winter in Colorado was preceded by one of the better ski seasons on record. Last year’s massive snowpack allowed skiers in Aspen to schuss all the way into June, even as downstream communities — Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs — braced for flooding.

Climatologists say wild swings in weather are to be expected as the earth warms. Floods, fires, hurricanes, droughts and snow dumps are indicators of this brave, new world of climate disruption.

What it means for skiers and snowboarders is there could be more winters like this one. But there could also be epic winters like last year, too. Climate change’s broader effects cause more worry.

“Killington’s base lodge was destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Irene,” Schendler said. “The roads in Vermont were flooded away. Wait a minute — nobody said climate change would physically destroy ski resorts! We were worried about snow going away! In fact, the concern for the industry is deeper than that. What if, as a result of fires and floods, storms and droughts, we become a kind of survival society — where we are always responding to disaster, fixing bridges and roads, sumping the basement — and as a result we don’t have the time, or the money, to go ski. Well, you could say ‘boo hoo, I’m so sorry for you!’ but in fact leisure, fun and other ancillary aspects of society are what make societies vibrant and successful. They are the cutting edge of creativity and thought.”

Changing temperatures don’t just affect ski resorts in the winter. The forests that engulf them in the summers have been ravaged by bark beetles that thrive in warmer environs. The insects are sucking the life out of forests, leaving them more vulnerable to wildfires and changing them from green to brown. Foresters are having to devote more resources to combat climate change.

In 2008, the Aspen Skiing Co. and Vail Resorts announced ambitious plans to cut their resorts’ carbon emissions using a wide range of inventive energy measures designed to prolong their survival.

Now, the first returns on those pledges are coming to light.

Vail Resorts says it was able to reduce its electricity and natural gas usage by 10.75 percent in three years through more efficient operations. The company’s goal was to cut emissions 10 percent.

“Vail Resorts remains committed to reducing our energy use further both because it’s the right thing to do for the environment and also because it’s the right thing to do for our company,” Rob Katz, chairman and chief executive officer of Broomfield-based Vail Resorts, said in a prepared statement.

Vail Resorts says its energy savings so far are equivalent to the annual energy usage of 1,400 average U.S. homes and has allowed the company to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 22,801 metric tons a year. The company didn’t adjust its baseline to include its recent acquisitions of resorts in Lake Tahoe, Calif., but Vail is aiming to reduce its energy consumption another 10 percent by 2020 and a spokeswoman said the company will include its new properties in that effort.

In Aspen, where the company has adjusted its baseline to include a new lodging property and new chairlifts, it is looking less likely resort officials will reach their goal to cut emissions 10 percent by the end of the year. A preliminary estimate of 2011 saw emissions reduced by 1,093 tons, or 3.5 percent.

“I think the next step, for Vail, and for the industry, is to become activists on climate,” Schendler said. “It’s uncomfortable, seems outside the scope of the organizational mission, irritates people, and isn’t all that much fun. But it is essential for the survival of the industry.”

An industry that flies customers in from around the world to ride coal-powered lifts faces a complex and difficult challenge when trying to balance business with climate-conscious behavior.

“We can’t just wave a magic wand and make energy intensive industry go away, (nor would we necessarily want to do that — Aspen’s economy would go away and I wouldn’t be able to send my kids to college) so we might as well try to reduce our emissions along with the Microsofts, Starbucks, and GEs that also are very energy intensive,” Schendler said. “The key point is that a ski resort’s lever on climate and energy issues isn’t reducing their own emissions, though that is good and necessary, but instead using the platform of the ski industry to lobby for policy change that will help move us forward. A carbon tax, for example, will make efficiency more profitable and help us deal with the huge energy intensity of our business model, airplanes included. We lobby for a price on carbon and so should the rest of the industry. And, by the way, the rest of the [ski] industry will.”

A-list winter athletes such as Aspen’s Chris Davenport and Gretchen Bleiler have taken it upon themselves to ask Congress for climate legislation. They say their careers depend on it. Keeping up with World Cup ski racing in recent years has meant keeping up with which resorts have any snow.

Smaller events, which drive business to local economies, also suffer. Officials recently called off the Colorado Freeride Championships at Snowmass because there isn’t enough snow to huck cliffs.

The Elk Mountains Grand Traverse, a race that starts in Crested Butte and ends in Aspen, is set to begin Friday but the starting line was moved from historic old town to Crested Butte Mountain Resort, where there is a higher elevation. Contestants have been warned there will be sections of the course where they’ll have to click out of their skis and walk across miles of snow-barren backcountry.

But canceled sporting events pale in comparison to the region’s bigger climate consequences.

An increasingly warmer Rocky Mountain West has already led to prolonged drought, a widespread mountain pine bark beetle epidemic and more susceptibility to large wildfires.

Aspenites are worried. But they are also keeping their sense of humor.

“The warmest summer I ever spent,” joked longtime local John Fray, “was this winter in Aspen.”