Bills on nuclear energy, phones in schools, grocery store liquor sales, and wolf attacks overcome key votes at Colorado Capitol
Proposals are priorities for Western Slope lawmakers
Robert Tann/The Aspen Times
A host of Colorado bills being carried in part by Western Slope lawmakers have cleared the halfway mark at the state Capitol as the 120-day legislative session nears its midway point.
Legislation on nuclear energy, school phone policies, grocery store liquor sales, and wolf depredation claims have passed in either the House or Senate. Once approved by both chambers, the bills still must be signed by Gov. Jared Polis to become law.
Here’s where each piece of legislation currently stands:
Defining nuclear power as ‘clean energy’
This legislative session marked a breakthrough for efforts to jumpstart nuclear energy interest in Colorado after previous proposals died at the Capitol.
House Bill 1040 would define nuclear energy as a clean energy resource under Colorado’s renewable energy standard. It passed the House Tuesday in a 43-18 vote.
The bill’s sponsors are Rep Alex Valdez, D-Denver; Rep. Ty Winter, R-Trinidad; Sen. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs; and Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco. It’s the first year such a bill has garnered bipartisan sponsors after similar Republican-led measures failed in 2023 and 2024.
Bill supporters hope that defining nuclear as a clean energy source will incentivize new developments that will diversify the state’s economy, particularly in coal-dependent communities transitioning away from fossil fuels.
“As the senator for regions like Craig and Hayden and northwest Colorado, which is going through an energy transition away from coal, exploring other types of energy development in the region is really important,” Roberts said in an interview last month.
Sponsors have also touted the effort as a way of meeting the state’s goal of having 100% renewable energy for large-scale utility companies by 2050.
But the proposal faces resistance from environmental groups. A Feb. 13 House committee hearing was mired in hours of public testimony, with opponents voicing concerns about nuclear energy’s health risks and environmental impact as well as skepticism over emerging technologies.
The bill also doesn’t have the backing of all Western Slope lawmakers. While proponents have said nuclear energy could help restore jobs and tax revenue lost to coal plant closures, Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs, has raised questions about community safety.
Her district, which spans Eagle, Pitkin, and Garfield counties, includes the town of Rifle, where decades of uranium mining led to groundwater contamination that took years to remediate. She said opening communities up to nuclear energy, be it for power or waste storage, could lead to the same effects.
“We are all for the jobs, all for ‘all of the above energy,’ but this bill is not it,” she said during remarks on the House floor. “We know that nuclear energy must not be classified as clean energy.”
Having passed the House, the bill now needs to be assigned to a Senate committee before being advanced to a full Senate vote.
Requiring cell phone policies in schools
A high school teacher-turned-lawmaker’s bill to require school districts to adopt policies on students’ cell phone use cleared the House Tuesday in a 49-16 vote.
House Bill 1135 is sponsored by Rep. Meghan Lukens, D-Steamboat Springs, who taught high school civics before joining the legislature in 2023. Lukens has pitched the bill as a way of removing classroom distractions while mitigating the impacts of screen time and social media consumption on young people’s mental health.
If passed, Colorado would join 19 other states that have adopted some form of school cell phone policy.
“This law would not impose a statewide ban,” she said during a preliminary vote last week on the House floor. “Instead, House Bill 1135 allows school districts to create their own locally-developed policies regarding cell phone use during school hours in K-12 settings.”
The bill’s only caveats are that policies must limit phone use for students while also considering exemptions for students with disabilities or medical needs.
House Bill 1135 is also sponsored by Rep. Mary Bradfield, R-Colorado Springs; Sen. Janice Marchman, D-Loveland; and Sen. Lisa Frizell, R-Castle Rock. It has not yet been assigned to a Senate committee.
Limiting liquor sales in grocery stores
Ever since Colorado voters approved a 2022 ballot measure that allowed grocery stores to sell wine, lawmakers have been looking for ways to blunt the threat to small businesses.
Senate Bill 33, another bipartisan proposal, would block future state licenses from being issued to grocery stores to sell hard alcohol. It would allow the roughly two dozen grocery stores in Colorado that currently hold a hard liquor license to continue selling.
Most of those stores are concentrated on the Front Range, though mountain towns are home to a few. That includes the Western Slope’s only Costco, located in Gypsum, which began selling hard liquor in 2018.
Independent liquor store owners have reported declining sales since the introduction of wine in grocery stores, and some fear further hard liquor expansion could put merchants out of business.
A more sweeping measure last year that would have banned liquor sales in grocery stores entirely and imposed more restrictions on how grocers sell wine and beer passed the House but died in a Senate hearing.
This year’s bill cleared the Senate in a 28-5 vote on Feb. 20. It is sponsored by Roberts; Sen. Judy Amabile, D-Boulder; Rep. Naquetta Ricks, D-Aurora; and Rep. Ron Weinberg, R-Loveland.
Roberts, during a preliminary Senate vote, said the bill creates a “lifeline for important small businesses in every one of our communities to continue to employ locals, to continue to keep dollars in our communities.”
He said the bill also promotes public safety and public health “by decreasing underage access to alcohol in our grocery stores” and creating a safer environment for grocery store shoppers who are going through substance abuse recovery.
While the measure has support from independent producers, including craft brewers and distillers who say they rely on local liquor stores to carry their products, as well as store owners, it faces backlash from large chains, liquor industry trade groups, and consumer choice advocates.
The bill has been assigned to the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee and is awaiting a hearing. If passed by the committee, the bill will go to a full House vote.
Hiding ranchers’ personal information during wolf attack claims
As the state’s contentious gray wolf reintroduction program continues, Western Slope lawmakers are advancing a bill that would hide ranchers’ personal information when seeking compensation for wildlife attacks on livestock.
Senate Bill 38 cleared a preliminary vote on Thursday in the House after unanimous approval in the Senate in early February, setting it on a glide path to the governor’s desk. It is sponsored by Roberts along with House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, and Sen. Marc Catlin, R-Montrose.
Under the bill, Colorado ranchers who file for a payout from the state over an attack, including from wolves, would have their name, address, and business information hidden from open records requests. Lawmakers say the intention is to protect ranchers who may be dissuaded from filing claims for fear of harassment.
“It has become clear that our ranching community is feeling very vulnerable,” McCluskie said on Monday during a House committee hearing following the bill’s passage in the Senate.
Her and Roberts’ central and northern mountain districts represent the epicenter of reintroduction, with the first 10 wolves released in Grand and Summit counties in December 2023. Catlin’s district, which includes parts of Pitkin and Eagle counties, saw the second round of wolf releases that occurred in mid-January.
While the bill has strong support from the agricultural industry, government transparency advocates like the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition have expressed reservations.
Lawmakers have brought amendments to the bill to clarify what information would still be public, including the amount of claim money being approved by the state, data on the counties where claims are being made, and information on wolf attacks, such as site assessment data from Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
