Ask any Colorado legislator what they hope to accomplish in the upcoming session and they will tell you they want to create jobs, or help businesses create jobs, or remove regulatory impediments to job creation, or improve access to capital.
The Colorado Senate killed a bill that would have established a legal limit in Colorado to the amount of THC drivers can have in their system. Lawmakers on the right and left who voted against the bill felt they were attempting to make policy without adequate information. House Bill 1261, sponsored in the Senate by Grand Junction Republican Steve King, died 20 nays to 15 ayes.
Marijuana DUI bill amended to require more study before a limit is set. Bill could be amended back on the floor, but for now a victory for those who think a per se level isn’t needed.
A bill designed to put a stop to lavish “business” trips taken by government entities, such as Pinnacol Assurance, was laid over Wednesday after Democratic senators proclaimed the bill still too lenient with taxpayer dollars. The bill was laid over in the Senate Judiciary Committee to determine support for an amendment.
Dr. Jeremy Boak, a leading expert on oil shale technology at the Colorado School of Mines, says the Obama administration is dragging its feet on oil shale production in the United States much the way the Bush administration stalled on climate change policy. “It’s curious to hear the same sort of arguments being made by this administration that were made by the Bush administration for not doing anything on climate change,” Boak told the Colorado Independent. “We’ve got to have all the answers before we can move.”
Colorado oil and gas regulators are touting a new website, set to debut in mid-April, that will allow operators to voluntarily register chemicals used in the controversial but commonly used process of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), under revised oil and gas drilling regulations that went into effect in 2009, already requires operators to disclose fracturing chemicals if requested by state regulators or by health professionals.
The Senate Judiciary Committee took one step yesterday toward ending sex trafficking in Colorado, a crime that many do not know exists but which traps girls, many of them born and raised in Colorado, at an average starting age of 12 to 14 years old.
Colorado Republican Congressmen Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn have co-sponsored a bill that would make all federal government operations use English and require all people undergoing citizenship testing to demonstrate their ability to speak English.
Senators Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, and Linda Newell, D-Denver, voiced their concern today that children’s lives are being destroyed by zero-tolerance policies in Colorado schools. While Senate Judiciary committee members had no tolerance for increasingly heavy handed punishment of student’s playground pranks, some reform advocates testified the bill may serve to shackle reforms already in the works.
Laura Latimer and Professor Ellen Paul attend college events in Durango with their 8-month-old son Alexander strapped to one of their chests. They wear Ernie and Burt hats around the house for comic relief. They own four dogs. They plan their days around their son’s nap time, just like all new parents do, and they want to be there for each other for the long haul, come what may. They work. They vote. They pay their taxes. Whether they realize it or not or even care, Laura and Ellen and Alexander are an apple pie American family. Because Laura and Ellen are lesbians, however, they pay more money for less civil rights than straight couples do, a fact that could change this year in Colorado as Senate Bill 172 makes its way though the legislature in Denver. The bill, sponsored by Senator Pat Steadman, would create legal domestic-partner civil unions in the state, and it meets its first test at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in the Old Supreme Court Chambers under the dome this afternoon.
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