The Alliance Legislative Committee is hard at work tracking and representing our membership and values at the 2023 Colorado General Assembly!

As we prepare for the People’s Lobby Trip (March 5-7), we will be celebrating our 2023 work and sharing timely action opportunities with you through this new twice-monthly Legislative Update. 

Big Picture & Bills We’re Tracking

This year’s session is off to a historically slow start and we are still awaiting the arrival of several big bills on oil and gas, climate, water, and more. 

Three-hundred and seven bills have currently been introduced and many are now making their way through their first committee hearings — beginning their journey to committee amendments and votes, followed by floor readings and votes in their legislative chamber of origin before repeating the same process in the other chamber. 

Even with this slow start, our team is engaging on exciting current bills including: 

HB23-1003 School Mental Health Assessment

Provides funding to schools to offer HIPA-protected student mental health assessments, just as some schools currently offer dental and vision assessments. If a student’s results indicate an opportunity for mental health services, state law protections regarding privacy and parental consent spring into action — and students are referred to Colorado’s very cool iMatter youth mental health resources. 

HB23-1116 New Energy Improvement Program Changes

Expands what Colorado’s existing Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (CPACE) program can do – growing it to help finance new wildfire, earthquake, and climate resiliency focused projects. This program helps commercial (and agricultural) property owners finance the big up front costs of things like solar, energy efficiency, and water efficiency and use the long-term steady savings to pay for it over time.

SB23-016 Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Measures

A giant omnibus of a bill that tackles several next generation climate policy questions ranging from more climate reductions time goals for Colorado, evolves definitions of what qualifies as clean technologies, requires climate impact reporting from Colorado’s massive PERA retirement program, and more. 

SB23-006 Rural Opportunity Office

From an all West Slope team of Sen. Roberts, Sen. Rich, Rep. Catlin and Rep. McLachlan, this bill integrates and streamlines a lot of disparate state funding, grants, and support activities for rural communities and economies.

You can search for, and read, introduced bills at https://leg.colorado.gov/bills or see what bills individual legislators have introduced at https://leg.colorado.gov/legislators.

Member Spotlight

In coming weeks, you’ll hear a lot more here about what Legislative Committee leaders and our Alliance members are doing to make great policy happen — we love to celebrate your work!

This edition, we’re celebrating Alliance Legislative Committee members Gretchen Nicoloff and Roze Evans. Gretchen has been remotely attending committee hearings to better understand complex legislation and reporting back to our team. Roze has spearheaded conversations with policy stakeholders ranging from the Colorado Energy Office to individual legislators to try to catalyze new policy action on clean energy and rural pharmacies issues!

Action Opportunities

Our next edition of this Legislative Update will include a few exciting and quick actions you can take to help make bills better, reward legislators who are showing courage, or help good bills get the votes they need to pass committees or chamber floors! At this slow start of session, we won’t be sending you anything this week. 

Our 2023 People’s Lobby Trip takes place March 5-7 and will see 15+ Alliance members meet with lawmakers to discuss, values, priorities, and bills under the Golden Dome in Denver. 

For more information, contact Political Director Joel Dyar at joel@westerncoloradoalliance.org.