Democrat Bill Ritter advocated Monday for allowing Colorado to set its own air- and water-quality standards while Republican Bob Beauprez said the state should hire more people to test environmental quality.
“As good and noble as it sounds, that we want to be better than the rest of the whole country in air quality and water quality … do we want to render ourselves less competitive?” said Beauprez, adding that he supports strengthening state monitoring commissions.
But Ritter said he supports allowing the state to set its own standards.
“What I think we need to do in this state is ensure that as we have this thriving oil-and-gas industry that we do pay attention to air quality and we do have the ability to set different standards than come out of Washington, D.C.,” Ritter said.
The remarks came during a gubernatorial debate sponsored by the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry that was attended by about 600 business executives.
CACI was right to work against legislation last session that would have given the state the power to adopt clean-air standards that are more stringent than the federal government’s, Beauprez said.
“Ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Use common sense to guide you,” Beauprez said.
Ritter chided Beauprez, who on the stump often talks about solving problems where they exist, saying, “I don’t think the folks in Washington, D.C., should be the last and final arbiter about what our air-quality standards should be.”
The candidates were also asked to detail the top three bills they would push next year to improve economic competitiveness.
Ritter said he would offer legislation to provide incentives for the production of renewable energy, stop infighting among colleges and universities for state money and create sustainable transportation funding.
Beauprez called for a referred measure to create sustainable transportation funding and legislation to do the same for higher education. He also called for selling off undedicated revenues from the state’s tobacco settlement.
Illegal immigration was not debated because the CACI moderator focused on business topics that candidates were given in advance.
The issue has been in the news because Beauprez has accused Ritter of plea-bargaining with illegal immigrants and Beauprez faces an FBI probe into an ad about that accusation.
The Beauprez ad attacking Ritter’s decision to plea-bargain with an illegal immigrant is under investigation by the FBI because information about the ad’s subject was accessed by a federal law enforcement official using a restricted federal database.
The only mention of the flap came by Beauprez, who joked during the debate’s beginning, “I want to pay particular thanks to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI for giving me work-release today.”
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at cfrates@denverpost.com or 303-954-1633.
