Contact: Jessica Goad, 720-206-4235
As the 2017 legislative session kicks off today, Conservation Colorado, a 22,000-member-strong environmental organization, outlined its key priorities for the session.
“We’re feeling positive and optimistic about this year’s session, and look forward to making progress with supporters on both sides of the aisle to protect what we love about Colorado: our way of life,” said Pete Maysmith, Executive Director of Conservation Colorado. “The election hasn’t changed what we plan to do here, and no matter who’s in charge in Washington, D.C., we must clean up our air, conserve our water, protect our lands, and ensure that every person in Colorado lives in a healthy environment.”
Specifically, Conservation Colorado has four key legislative priorities:
Chart our own path forward and create clean energy jobs.
- Ensure we have the cleanest air in the nation and a thriving cleantech sector.
- Help communities in rural Colorado become economically diversified, especially those that have been historically dependent on natural resource extraction.
- Defend against attacks from the legislature, such as last year’s ill-fated effort to gut the budget of the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment or attempts to turn our national public lands over to the state or private interests.
Plan for the future, particularly with regard to transportation and growth.
- Advocate for investments in public transit, walking, and biking options.
- Build upon the work the legislature did last year to make Colorado the best state in the nation to buy an electric vehicle. Now we must make sure that we’re the best state in which to drive one.
Protect the health of our children.
- Ensure that oil and gas infrastructure does not encroach on our communities.
- Make more progress on clean air and renewable energy, considering that children are one of the most susceptible populations to air pollution.
Incentivize the sustainable use of our resources and work to prevent waste and pollution.
- Implement policies that help conserve precious water resources.
- Promote solutions for saving energy.
“Importantly, the anti-conservation, anti-enforcement agenda did not win here in Colorado,” Maysmith continued, “as seen in the fact that pro-environment candidates won down our state ballot. Citizens in our state value a healthy environment and the Colorado way of life, and we will fight to turn those values into real change this session.”
