“We hear stories of people paying folks $50 through Craigslist to come and wear shirts supporting ‘Coal for America,’” Lisa Jackson, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator and surprise guest at the “Rebel With A Cause” gala, told a ballroom of activists on Thursday night.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson speaks in Denver. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“What’s really neat is the thousands of people who came because they care, the moms who came,” Jackson said to a receptive crowd that filled the Seawell Grand Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts for dinner, a live auction and awards ceremony.

The audience stood and clapped when Jackson took the stage as the gala’s surprise guest. Her treatment here was quite different than what she receives in the nation’s capitol.

“It’s so rare that I walk into the room … and hear the applause that which counters those things I hear inside the Washington Beltway, which is that ‘average Americans just don’t care about air and water.’

“We know better,” she said.

Gov. John Hickenlooper at the "Rebel With A Cause" gala in Denver last night. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“We want to help states that are trying to ensure that the wealth and potential that lies in natural gas doesn’t come at a price that would be far too high,” she said, adding that the agency plans to roll out the first results of its study at the end of the year with more to follow as the information becomes available.

“Our heritage is no more beautifully on display than in the Rocky Mountains,” said Jackson, who is in Colorado to speak to a Denver high school today about science and technology. She also mentioned she’d be meeting with Gov. John Hickenlooper, who dropped in on the gala to socialize.

Some of Colorado’s biggest critics of the EPA weren’t in the room. But U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner, Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn have consistently voted for legislation that weakens the U.S. government’s ability to regulate pollution that spoils the nation’s common air, water and land.

“We have a canon of environmental laws in this country that is under siege,” Jackson said.

To combat the undermining of environmental laws, two state conservation groups, Colorado Environmental Coalition and Colorado Conservation Voters, announced a merger at last night’s gala that will see Pete Maysmith at the helm of the new organization, which has not been named yet.

“Our stunning mountains, flowing rivers, gorgeous lakes, and clear blue skies brought us to Colorado and have kept us here,” Maysmith said. “We all know there is much more to be done to protect and preserve Colorado’s beauty and enhance the quality of life for all.”

Elise Jones, the outgoing executive director of Colorado Environmental Coalition, said the new group will “create an uber force for the environment, a juggernaut for Colorado’s natural heritage.”

Jones is leaving nonprofit work to run for a seat on the Boulder County Board of Commissioners.

The merger of the two organizations has been talked about for a number of years, according to the conservationists, and they said now is the time to combine the strengths of both groups: Colorado Environmental Coalition’s policy, advocacy and organizing work and Colorado Conservation Voters’ focus on electing pro-environment candidates to public office and holding them accountable.

Officials for the two groups say they have combined to affect more than 130 different bills at the state legislature in the past six years, taking on water conservation, air quality, energy efficiency and transit.

House Republicans passed a pair of provisions Friday that would stymie the military’s efforts to incorporate more renewable fuels into its supplies. The defense authorization bill now heads for a markup in the Senate Armed Services Committee, where Democrats are preparing to go to battle.

“Continued reliance on foreign oil puts U.S. troops at unnecessary risk on and off the battlefield,” reads a letter written last week from Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, to Navy Admiral Jonathan Greenert soliciting his opinion on the House’s actions.

“In addition, the fiscal costs related to DOD’s dependence on fossil fuels are staggering. The annual Pentagon fuel bill increases by $130 million for every dollar increase in the cost per barrel of oil,” the letter continued. “This year alone, the Department of Defense will face an additional $1.3 billion bill as a result of the recent rise in fuel prices. Given that our military consumes approximately 300,000 barrels of oil per day, research into alternative fuels is a strategic and economic necessity.”

In response, Admiral Greenert wrote back (pdf) this week, saying attempts to obstruct the military’s transition to alternative fuels “will impede America’s energy security.” He referenced a May 16 statement from his superiors that lamented the House provisions would affect the Department of Defense’s “ability to procure alternative fuels and would further increase American reliance on fossil fuels, thereby contributing to geopolitical instability and endangering” U.S. interests abroad.

Soldiers set up a solar panel. (Photo: U.S. Department of Defense)

The military is emerging as a leader in the country’s clean energy movement, setting a goal of producing three gigawatts of renewable energy by 2025, or enough energy to power 750,000 homes. Each branch of the military is expected to kick in a gigawatt of energy, with the Navy taking the lead.

Not only are fossil fuels expensive, but transporting liquid fuel is an additional burden on the troops. And too often a deadly one. Many of America’s troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed guarding fuel convoys and defending fuel resupply lines. According to Sierra Magazine: One out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan, and one out of 38 in Iraq, led to the death of a soldier in 2007. In 2007 alone, that adds up to hundreds dead given the 6,000 recorded fuel convoys. Between 2003 and 2010 more than 3,000 troops have been killed or wounded while moving fuel.

Burning oil and gas also creates more work for the armed forces.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta recently noted that “rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”

The defense authorization bill passed the House by a vote of 299 to 120. Colorado Republicans Scott Tipton, Mike Coffman, Doug Lamborn and Cory Gardner all voted for it as did Democrat Ed Perlmutter. Colorado Democrats Diana DeGette and Jared Polis voted against the defense bill.

Rep. Coffman

“By forcing our military to adopt high-cost renewable energies, while at the same time pushing for reductions in military personnel, the president will ultimately force further reductions to achieve his costly Green Energy initiative while also meeting his demands for a smaller military,” Coffman said earlier this year.

The stage is now set for a showdown over the military’s energy spending between Sens. Udall, Shaheen and Begich and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., who have decried the military’s shift away from fossil fuels. The arguments just may come down to dollars and cents.

“There is a clear need to find cost-competitive alternative fuels, given the fiscal challenges the Navy is facing in FY12 alone due to increases in the price of fuel,” Admiral Greenert wrote to the senators.

Congressman Lamborn followed that bill up the same day, April 18, with the Streamlining Permitting of American Energy Act, or H.R. 4383, which would loosen the application requirements for permits and require the Secretary of the Interior to issue a permit within 30 days of receiving drilling applications. It also contains a clause requiring citizens to pay $5,000 to protest drilling projects.

Congressman Coffman, also on April 18, introduced the Providing Leasing Certainty Act, or H.R. 4382, which outlaws the public, local governments and stakeholders from reviewing lease sales.

A drilling protestor in Boulder. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“Taking away the public’s right to participate in decisions about land we own is criminal,” he said. “It’s clear that these representatives are working on behalf of industry groups like Western Energy Alliance [WEA] and not the public. Why else would they invite WEA Vice President Kathleen Sgamma to testify about why they should shut their own constituents out of decisions about what happens to their public lands?”

Phone and email messages left for the National Republican Congressional Committee and staffers at the congressmen’s campaign offices were not immediately returned.

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. While Colorado’s conservative congressional delegation is pushing to lease more federal lands to the oil and gas industry, there are over 6,000 unused permits in the West alone.

“We should be discussing real solutions to gas prices, such as aggressively investing in high tech vehicles and renewable energy, increasing fuel efficiency for cars and trucks, and cracking down on Wall Street oil speculators,” Garrington said. “All this legislation will do is lock the public out of our public lands and put more money in the pocket of oil company CEOs.”

National standards to limit greenhouse gas emissions from future power plants have been a long time coming as there is no uniform national limit on the amount of carbon pollution that either new or existing facilities can currently emit. Five years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, and in 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency determined that carbon pollution threatens Americans’ health and welfare.

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“Moving our country toward a clean energy future will help stabilize energy prices, create new jobs, diversify the energy sources on which we depend, and make our country more secure,” Udall said. “It is crucial that we begin to reduce our dependence on the dirty fuels of the last century and curb the effects of climate change. The benefits of clean air are numerous and profound to Colorado’s public health and economy. While I would prefer to see a legislative solution that includes a comprehensive energy policy for America and focuses on clean, domestic sources of energy, the proposed standard can serve as an important backstop to congressional inaction and put a price on carbon pollution.”

The issuance of draft rules for carbon emissions didn’t come with quite the same fanfare as the December announcement of the EPA’s final rules to control power plant mercury emissions.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson called the carbon limit “a common-sense step to reduce pollution in our air, protect the planet for our children, and move us into a new era of American energy.”

Power plants are reportedly responsible for 40 percent of the nation’s output of carbon dioxide.

The proposed carbon standards, however, would not apply to existing power plants.

Industry groups such as the National Mining Association are already calling on Congress to spike the proposed rules, arguing they will lead to higher costs of living for Americans.

“EPA’s proposal for controlling greenhouse gas emissions from about half the nation’s electric power supply is a poorly disguised cap-and-tax scheme that represents energy and economic policy at its worst,” National Mining Association President and CEO Hal Quinn said in a prepared statement. “Higher utility bills and fewer jobs are the only certain outcomes from this reckless attempt to override Congress’s repeated refusal to enact punitive caps on carbon dioxide emissions.”

Colorado’s conservative congressmen — Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner, Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman — have previously pledged to vote against any climate-change legislation.

The EPA claims new natural gas plants will be able to meet the new carbon standard without adding any additional technology. But new coal plants would need to install technology that captures carbon dioxide emissions and sequesters them into the ground rather than release them into the air.

Federal officials downplayed any negative impact a carbon standard would have on industry.

“Even without today’s action, the power plants that are currently projected to be built going forward would already comply with the standard,” the EPA said in a press release. “As a result, EPA does not project additional cost for industry to comply with this standard.”

He called on the public to help him craft a pair of public-lands bills.

In the first — the Central Mountains Outdoor Heritage Act — the Democratic senator wants to consider 32 pockets in Eagle, Pitkin and Summit counties for wilderness protection, many of them additions to Holy Cross, Eagles Nest and Maroon Bells-Snowmass areas. Udall said he envisions a bill that would foster “a world-class destination for outdoor recreation while protecting pre-existing uses,” such as the Colorado National Guard’s high-altitude helicopter training area.

Draft maps for the proposal are largely based off of Eagle and Summit County wilderness plans that U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colorado, submitted to the House two years ago, along with input regarding Pitkin County from Carbondale-based Wilderness Workshop. The three counties comprise a veritable paradise for skiers, hikers, cyclists, mountain bikers, snowmobilers, hunters and fishermen.

“Many of these areas have been exhaustively vetted and debated,” Udall said.

Sen. Mark Udall in Frisco on Sunday. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“A national monument designation would put a star on the map, drawing more visitors to the area’s world-class river rafting and outdoor recreating activities and support our local tourism economy,” Udall said against a backdrop of blue skies and snow-covered mountains.

As he spoke, cross-country skiers snaked around a meadow in the distance. Giggling children raced inner tubes down a nearby hill. And snowboarders in SUVs passed by on their way to Breckenridge.

“The outdoors is an important part of our quality of life here in Colorado,” Udall continued. “For many outfitters and small business owners the preservation of our state’s majestic mountains and valleys is vital for their livelihoods.” He called for “a collaborative community driven process.”

Eagle County Commissioner Jon Stavney, Summit County Commissioner Dan Gibbs and Breckenridge Mayor Dr. John Warner also spoke in favor of protecting more of Colorado’s rugged landscape, and they emphasized how it serves as the backbone of their economies.

“Future generations will … judge our wisdom by the places we protect,” Stavney said.

As a member of the Senate’s Subcommittee on National Parks and co-chairman of the Outdoor Recreation Caucus, Udall plans to leverage his leadership “to take this [proposal] to the next level.”

Browns Canyon (Image: Friends of Browns Canyon)

Udall does have the assistance of Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, who revived a plan to better protect public land in the San Juan Mountains with Udall in September. That bill, which would declare roughly 61,000 acres of southwestern Colorado as federal wilderness or special management areas, had died in the 111th Congress.

Whether the 112th Congress is any better for wilderness remains to be seen.

“Coloradans want to preserve their quality of life and their opportunities,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado. “With efforts in the U.S. House and now the U.S. Senate, our state’s precious lands are that much closer to being protected. I look forward to working with Senator Udall to set forth a balanced approach to protecting some of the last remaining wild places in Colorado.”

The Department of Interior also supports several aspects of Udall’s plan.

Udall said it could take several months, or longer, before legislation is introduced in the Senate.

“I don’t have a deadline. Of course if we’re standing here 10 years from now, we’ve fallen short.”

“People were not citizens. They got their driver’s license, they became a citizen, they registered to vote, it’s a good thing. But I know some of that’s not OK. Now and then these things crop up in other states, big problems,” Gessler reportedly said. “The last two or three years prior to me taking office, there were about 150 people who had asked me to remove them from the voting rolls because they were non-citizens.

“So they’d registered to vote and then they’d realized, oftentimes when they applied for citizenship, that they’re not allowed to vote because of [being a] non-citizen, otherwise they can never become a citizen. So they asked to be removed, so I know there’s problems out there….

“Remember I told you about 150 people have been removed from the voter rolls as non-citizen? That number has ballooned to well over 400. In one more year we’ve more than doubled.”

Messages left with the secretary of state’s office seeking confirmation of the quotes and evidence to support the assertions they contain have so far gone unreturned.

In speaking to the Arapahoe County Republicans, Gessler, an unabashedly partisan conservative politics attorney for years before winning office, was defending moves he has made over the last year that he says were aimed at guarding against voter fraud. His actions– such as pushing legislation that would grant him the power to purge voters from registration rolls based on comparisons conducted by his office of “government databases” and suing Denver County to prevent its clerk from mailing ballots to registered voters before elections– drew howls from members of the media, county clerks and government watchdog organizations, who looked on them with deep suspicion and demanded evidence of voter fraud that might justify them.

Indeed, only weeks after taking office in 2011, Gessler had conjured the prospect that Colorado was plagued by noncitizen voter fraud in 2010. He delivered testimony in DC to that effect and the national Fox News website reported that 5,000 noncitizens had cast ballots here. Yet Gessler delivered scant evidence when journalists in Colorado came looking for him to back up his claims.

This latest report from the Statesman, published Thursday, continues a seesaw pattern, where Gessler pronounces a number– “400 noncitizens”– and the number is reported. Skepticism spirals out into the media landscape and then into the general public where the number and the word “noncitizen” live at the middle of a fuzzier, complicated, rippling story.

Still, Gessler’s latest comments on voter-roll purging came tied to red meat assertions about how the primary reason he ran for secretary of state was to help “stop the Obama train” and “turn it around,” so they come delivered in an especially charged package for an election-year audience.

Gessler, for example, told the Arapahoe Republicans that the alleged 400 noncitizens erroneously registered to vote had in fact been purged from the rolls. Removing a voter from the registration list, however, is an action that secretaries of state must do according to a process governed by federal law, according to Jenny Flanagan at Common Cause, a fact Coloradans may well recall.

“We’re talking about a systematic program proscribed by the National Voter Registration Act,” Flanagan told the Colorado Independent. “This is nothing haphazard.”

Flanagan’s group was part of the coalition that in 2008 sued then-Colorado GOP Secretary of State Mike Coffman to stop him from purging voter rolls in the state just weeks before the presidential election–the same election that put Coffman into Congress. The coalition was successful. U.S. District Court Judge John Kane ordered Coffman to cease and desist, calling the secretary of state “obdurate” for seeming to push back against the court on such a vital issue.

“Some voter registration rolls are messy, of course,” Flanagan said, “but… I can just say that these stories of noncitizens voting are always more complicated than they at first appear and so we are concerned.”

Flanagan said the 400 residents of Colorado, people who Gessler suggests in his quotes are documented but not yet citizens, would have had to submit requests to either the secretary of state’s office or county clerk offices to be removed from the voter rolls.

The Colorado Independent submitted an open records request with the secretary of state’s office Tuesday seeking documentary evidence that any such noncitizens asked to be removed from the rolls. According to state law, the secretary’s office has three days to deliver any relevant documents.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

The ruling reaffirmed a three-judge decision issued on Oct. 21, 2011, that upheld the roadless rule, passed under former President Bill Clinton, which prohibits development on nearly 60 million acres.

Thompson Divide near Carbondale (Image: Thompson Divide Coalition)

The Court of Appeals decision harkens back to 2008 when a federal court in Wyoming found that the roadless rule violated environmental law. When the 10th Circuit overturned that 2008 ruling last fall, it opened the door for the Obama administration to enforce the Clinton rule.

“[The] court decision gives President Obama a green light to implement one of the nation’s most important conservation polices,” said Jane Danowitz, director of the Pew Environment Group’s U.S. public lands program. “With the last legal barrier cleared, the administration should move quickly to enforce the roadless rule as the law of the land.”

It is possible the national rule could land before the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, Republicans in the House led by California Congressman Kevin McCarthy are promoting the Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act, which would essentially invalidate the 2001 Clinton rule. Dozens of GOP congressmen, including Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman in Colorado, are co-sponsoring the bill. Many Colorado businesses oppose the legislation, saying it poses “a serious threat” to the state’s outdoor-recreation-based economy.

For a decade, the federal roadless rule has been immersed in legal challenges. The uncertainty prompted Colorado and Idaho to craft their own rules. The Department of Agriculture is reviewing Colorado’s plan, which would allow exemptions for coal mining, logging and expansion of ski areas.

Now that there is a final decision in the 10th Circuit, conservationists say Colorado’s rule isn’t needed.

“The court’s action eliminates the need for the administration to pursue a separate policy in Colorado, undertaken when the roadless rule’s legal status was in doubt,” Danowitz said. “The Colorado plan would open up a majority of the state’s best backcountry to coal mining, drilling, and other large-scale activity. The importance of a national policy to preserve what remains of America’s pristine forests cannot be overstated. Without the roadless rule, protection of these areas would be left to the patchwork management system that has resulted in millions of acres lost to industrial development.”

Nonetheless, sportsmen’s groups, other forest users and special interests continue to work with Colorado officials and the U.S. Forest Service to tweak the Colorado rule and improve it.

English language bills are among those introduced practically every session of Congress without any expectation of making it to a vote by the full House or Senate. This year, however, the bill might get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee. Texas Congressman Lamar Smith (TX-21) told WOAI that he would “support efforts to make English the official language and may consider bringing up the issue in the House Judiciary Committee down the road.”

Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King introduced HR 997, the English Language Unity Act of 2011, which would make English the official language of the United States. The legislation would require official functions of the United States be conducted in English. It would create English language requirements and workplace policies in the public sector, and any exceptions to this standard “should be limited to extraordinary circumstances, such as asylum.”

HR 997 has a total of 109 co-sponsors, including nine from the Texas delegation. Texas Republicans Rep. Joe Barton (TX-6), Rep. Louis Gohmert (TX-1), Rep. Ralph Hall (TX-4), Rep. Samuel Johnson (TX-3), Rep. Kenny Marchant (TX-24), Rep. Michael McCaul (TX-10), Rep. Randy Neugebauer (TX-19), Rep. Ted Poe (TX-2), and presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-14) have all signed on as co-sponsors.

Donna De La Cruz, press secretary for Community Change and spokewoman for Reform Immigration for America, told the Texas Independent that the organizations opposed the legislation and that they believe it is stalled in the House and Senate. “It’s really not going anywhere,” said De La Cruz.

Among the reasons De La Cruz cited for their opposition to the bill was that it is “inconsistent” with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. De La Cruz said that there are public safety issues, and cited a case where Filipino nurses were suing for discrimination after being fired for speaking in their native Tagalog on the job. “It was easier for them to talk about their patients in their native language,” said De La Cruz.

Suzanne Bibby, director of government relations at ProEnglish, told the Texas Independent that the example of the Filipino nurses was “not a very relevant” argument. “That wouldn’t have an effect on those nurses,” said Bibby. “This bill would only effect federal government or federal agencies.” Bibby says that the text of the bill includes seven exceptions.

The text of the bill includes the exceptions of the teaching of languages; requirements under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act; actions, documents, or policies necessary for national security, international relations, trade, tourism, or commerce; actions or documents that protect the public health and safety; actions or documents that facilitate the activities of the Bureau of the Census in compiling any census of population; actions that protect the rights of victims of crimes or criminal defendants; or using terms of art or phrases from languages other than English.

Having English the official language of government, De La Cruz says would make it more difficult for people to do day to day things such as get drivers licenses or register to vote. “It’s a smokescreen,” said De La Cruz. “It’s another way to make it difficult for people who try to come to this country and work to become citizens. That is what America was founded on.”

“Behind all of this is a very racist and xenophobic view.” said De La Cruz. “While it is currently targeted largely at the Latino community, this is not a new issue. There was a push for English as the national language in the late 1800s when there was a large push of German immigrants, and with every wave of immigrants there is always these types of proposed laws.”

“We consider that ridiculous,” said Bibby of the claim that the legislation is motivated by racism and xenophobia. “Latinos and Hispanics are not the only immigrant populations in the United States, but Spanish is the most commonly accommodated language in the United States. No other languages should be accommodated over others for political reasons.”

As the American Independent reported, recently at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), King made a surprise appearance on the ProEnglish sponsored “Failure of Multiculturalism” panel to endorse HR 997, and said that his bill would “establish a uniform English language rule for naturalization.”

The panel included British writer and activist Peter Brimelow, the founder and editor of VDARE.com, a website the Southern Poverty Law Center has named as being run by a “White Nationalist” hate group and SPLC has documented controversial statements made over the years by Brimelow and his VDARE writers. On the panel King shook Brimelow’s hand, saying, “I’ve read your books; I just hadn’t met you.” But after the speech, King told various reporters he was unaware of the writer’s work.

Scot Kersgaard contributed to this article.

Udall and Bennet

Rep. Cory Gardner

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, is the lone holdout in the state’s bipartisan push.

Rep. Lamborn

“My preference is to help industry grow by reducing federal regulations and mandates as opposed to carving out special interests in the tax code,” Lamborn wrote in an email to the Colorado Independent on Tuesday.

Lamborn, who is the chairman of the Natural Resources subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, recently supported H.R. 2173, the Advancing Offshore Wind Production Act, which would slash government red tape for the wind industry in seeking permits on federal lands. He also recently introduced a plan to open about 2 million acres of public lands in Utah, Wyoming and western Colorado to oil shale drilling, which environmentalists strongly oppose. The U.S. Department of Interior has different ideas and is trying to rein in oil shale leasing in the American West.

Polls show, however, that Colorado residents prefer renewable energy over fossil fuels.

Renewable energy experts say the wind production tax credit is key for Colorado.

“Manufacturing jobs are critical in America’s economic recovery,” Tim Heaton and Lee Boughey, chairs of the Colorado Energy Coalition, said in a joint statment. “The expiration of the Production Tax Credit would have a devastating impact on Colorado, affecting not only jobs and investment at our large wind manufacturers, but the many supply chain manufacturers that serve the wind industry. To provide the certainty that wind-energy companies need to create more jobs and investment in Colorado, the Colorado Energy Coalition endorses a three- to five-year extension of the PTC.”

The legislation, which President George H.W. Bush first signed into law in 1992, gives owners of wind energy farms a 2.2 cents-per-kilowatt credit on their U.S. income taxes annually for the first decade of the wind farm’s existence. It has been extended many times and is set to expire at the end of the year.

Colorado generates the third highest percentage of power from wind of any state in the nation and is home to several major wind energy developers and wind turbine manufacturing facilities.

Estimates show that wind energy employs upwards of 6,000 workers statewide.

Colorado U.S. Sen Mark Udall was an early critic of the bills and welcomed news that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had pushed PIPA off the senate agenda.

“I want to thank the many Coloradans who spoke out loud and strong on this critically important issue,” Udall was quoted to say in a release. “Internet piracy is a serious problem, but the Protect IP Act would have had serious unintended consequences to innovation, cyber security and free speech that we simply can’t risk. Thanks to the millions of Americans who have made their voices heard, Senate leaders have decided to look for a better balance that will protect intellectual property while maintaining the open Internet. I stand ready to work with any of my colleagues to ensure whatever legislation we ultimately consider protects Internet-based innovation, security and free speech.”

In the end, the Colorado delegation, led by Udall and Rep Jared Polis (CD2), overwhelmingly came out against the bills, including Republican Reps Scott Tipton, Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman. Senator Michael Bennet, originally a co-sponsor of the bill, retreated in response to concerns raised by constituents, he said.

Bennet was not alone by a long shot. Support for the bills swung wildly to opposition over the last two days, seeing traditional hundred-million-dollar lobbying efforts in support of the bills crumble under the weight of aggressive pushback from the tech industry and citizens from across the political spectrum.

ProPublica graphs visualizing shifting positions among lawmakers on the bills from Wednesday to Thursday as the bills were set to come up for votes rocketed around digital social networks.

The entertainment industry has long been working to remake the internet to restrict the “frictionless” sharing of material that defines it, working to bolster the country’s already sweeping copyright laws to give legal teams broad power to shutdown sites and wring settlements from startups and individual web users.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.