Previous reporting: 

A sudden freeze on federal spending by the Trump administration — set to take effect Tuesday but put on hold by a federal judge — sent Colorado officials scrambling as they tried to figure out the extent and impact of the decision. 

Much of Colorado’s $40 billion state budget as well as its hospitals, universities, early childhood programs, research laboratories, and other agencies and groups rely on federal funding for day-to-day operations. It wasn’t immediately clear how President Donald Trump’s attempted freeze, should it go into effect, would ripple through the state or affect residents’ access to services.

But early analysis from lawmakers and officials at the federal, state and local levels projected broad impact, from environmental programs to regular government funding to major capital projects reliant on federal grants. By day’s end, state officials already had joined a multi-state lawsuit challenging the action.

The Trump administration’s budget memo, issued to federal departments and agencies Monday and set to go into effect at 3 p.m. Mountain time on Tuesday, . U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan issued an administrative stay on the funding freeze until next Monday.

In a statement earlier Tuesday afternoon, Gov. Jared Polis said the federal funding pause “hurts children and hardworking families, jeopardizes American jobs and businesses, harms hospitals and safety net health providers, threatens road and bridge repairs, and impacts countless other programs.”

A 51-page spreadsheet being circulated by the Office of Management and Budget, which authorized the freeze, identified hundreds of programs across federal agencies that are potentially affected, according to a copy obtained by The Denver Post. It includes funding for programs related to the Special Olympics, nutrition services, maternal and infant health, legal and burial services for veterans, clean water grants and more.

State and federal lawmakers told The Post on Tuesday morning that they were working on pulling together a list of affected state-specific programs.

The judicial order pausing its implementation gave the state some breathing room — but it still sowed “absolute chaos, confusion and fear” among Coloradans who rely on services covered by federal money, said Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, in an afternoon news conference.

She said she learned the news while meeting with Denver Health in the morning, and employees there didn’t know if they even had jobs anymore.

“This has disrupted people’s lives,” McCluskie said. “This has created fear in our communities. This is the most irresponsible act of the moment from a president who doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

Legislators told The Post on Tuesday morning that funding to Medicaid, which provides care for a quarter of the state, had been shut off. Marc Williams, a spokesman for the state’s Medicaid authority, said that state officials could not access their payment system starting Monday afternoon, before the memo was issued. Access was restored shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Officials expected to receive funding Tuesday morning; the transfer has still not come through, he said, though the delay is not expected to impact providers. Williams said it wasn’t clear if the delay was related to the freeze, though he said the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing had never had a similar issue in his 13 years at the agency.

New guidance from the OMB stated that Medicaid would not be affected by the funding freeze, though officials in other states have said their Medicaid funding was also shut off Tuesday. , White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the administration was aware of the payment portal issue and that it would be resolved soon.

The administration’s new guidance also said that payments “required by law … will be paid without interruption or delay,” and that the freeze didn’t affect SNAP — more commonly known as food stamps. Though the guidance says the freeze isn’t an “across the board” halt on federal assistance, the memo instituting the freeze states that “federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all federal financial assistance.”

Regular funding to Denver Health and federally qualified health centers, which are the safety net health care providers across the state, also appeared to be in jeopardy.

And on Tuesday, Head Start providers in Colorado dealt with a shutdown of the federal payment management system, leaving them unable to draw money. The said in a statement that the portal reopened by 1:15 p.m.

“I’m always open to ideas from anyone about how we can make government more efficient and better deliver for fellow Coloradans,” said Polis, who has pursued about the new Trump administration, in his statement. “Still, chaotic actions like this do not make our country better off. We hope that this senseless action is reversed urgently before too much damage is done to people and businesses.”

Ending “wokeness” is one of directives

The requires all federal agencies “to identify and review all Federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President����ap policies and requirements.” Out of nearly $10 trillion identified in federal spending in the last fiscal year, it said nearly $3 trillion went to federal assistance.

The memo says assistance should be focused on things like manufacturing, government efficiency and “ending ‘wokeness.’ ” The memo goes on to attack “Marxist equity, transgenderism and green new deal social engineering policies” as a “waste of taxpayer dollars.”

The city of Denver’s 2025 budget, which amounts to about $4.4 billion, includes nearly $150 million in federal funding for a range of services, including small business support and road and bridge construction. It����ap not yet clear which city programs will be impacted, a city spokesperson said.

“The directive from President Trump has created mass confusion across the U.S. and threatens to disrupt the lives of countless Denverites who depend on resources funded in part by the federal government — resources funded by federal taxes paid by Denverites,” said Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for Mayor Mike Johnston.

Denver Health’s outpatient clinics, hospital and research programs received a combined $89 million from federal grants in 2024, though spokesman Dane Roper said the system was still assessing how a pause would affect it.

“We are seeking additional information regarding the duration of this ‘temporary’ pause, the legality of this sweeping edict and the process to reinstate this funding,” he said in a statement. “Denying critical funding to programs that support the medical and social needs of our patients will have direct impacts on the health and well-being of Coloradans across the state.”

More than $4.3 million in grants to providers to offer addiction treatment and expand rural health services also was set to go on hiatus if the freeze took effect, according to U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper’s office. It also would pause funding for the 988 suicide prevention line and for programs meant to prevent opioid misuse, the office’s statement said.

Several states with Democratic attorneys general, including Colorado, quickly announced plans the federal government over the pause. The lawsuit — led by New York and joined by 21 other states and the District of Columbia — was filed within hours.

“The Trump White House freeze on congressionally mandated federal aid is reckless and unprecedented,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. “This action takes the power of the purse away from Congress, violates the separation of powers, and is already causing massive harm in Colorado, undermining delivery of healthcare, education, and public safety.

“As attorney general, I will continue to defend Coloradans and the Constitution. This government funding shutdown is illegal and must be stopped by the courts. That is why I will join other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to do just that.”

Differing views on impact

The executive branch is obligated to spend funds passed by Congress. A 1974 law, the , gives Congress oversight of what the executive branch may delay spending on. Withholding congressionally authorized spending was for Trump’s first impeachment during his first term.

The guidance issued by the Trump administration Tuesday explicitly pushed back on the freeze being an impoundment of federal spending. It called it “a temporary pause” to ensure that spending complies with Trump’s recent executive orders.

Jack Stelzner, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, said the Denver congresswoman’s office had been inundated with calls from constituents about what the order meant. Grace Martinez, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, said his office was trying to pull together a list of impacts in northern Colorado. Both are Democrats.

“What does this mean for Colorado? Funding to our police departments, our rural hospitals, programs for homeless veterans. Nearly 9,000 kids in CO Head Start programs may be locked out,” Hickenlooper, a Democrat, . “Trump is sacrificing working Americans.”

, U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a freshman Republican from a battleground district in northern Colorado, downplayed the freeze as “temporary” and the memo announcing it as “very general.” He accused critics of using “inflammatory, fear-based language” to describe the memo, and he said he supported the freeze’s stated intention of identifying “DEI” spending.

In a statement, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert said the freeze was “a necessary, temporary pause for specific programs listed under Executive Orders that must be evaluated as part of following through on President Trump’s promise to cut wasteful spending; our office is working with constituents to address concerns and provide more information as we receive it.”

Among Colorado’s other Republican members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank’s office did not return a request for comment. U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, of Grand Junction, said in a statement that his team was evaluating the order and how it might affect constituents in the 3rd Congressional District.

State lawmakers, meanwhile, were alarmed.

Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat and chair of the powerful Joint Budget Committee, called it a “very early, quickly written memo that has broad and far-reaching consequences.” It comes as the state is grappling with its own budget shortfall of up to $1 billion, which adds up to “potentially extremely painful cuts” to state services, he said. Even with the state’s reserves, it could not replace lost federal money.

Of the president’s action, he said: “There certainly were blusterings, and maybe even tweets, but I did not expect it to culminate in a memo like this so quickly, and with a complete and total lack of any kind of notice.”

One thing creating confusion Tuesday was which federal money is still available and which is frozen.

Just because a grant or loan has been announced does not mean the recipient has the money in a bank account to spend, said KC Becker, a former state House speaker who left her post as the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 8 administrator on Inauguration Day. Once a grant or loan has been announced, it then must be obligated, or awarded, to the recipient.

“Even if money is awarded, it may not all be deposited in an account,” Becker said. “But usually the legal obligation comes once it’s awarded. We’ll see what the Trump administration actually does.”

The Trump administration could try to pull back funds grant by grant or yank categories of grants, Becker said. Or it could attempt to cancel projects that had been announced but not awarded.

“The executive order is very broad because it halts everything,” she said. “But they won’t have the resources to defend lawsuits from every entity out there that wants to sue. So I would guess they’ll have to narrow their approach.”

Colorado Bureau of Investigation spokesman Rob Low said the agency receives a varying amount of federal grant money each year, but it currently has about $6.1 million in active federal grant funds for programs that include addressing DNA testing backlogs at CBI’s forensics lab, crime victim assistance and the investigation of cold cases, he said.

“Freezing the disbursement of these grant funds until CBI’s next quarterly reimbursement could potentially affect (these) programs,” he said.

“We’re completely locked out”

The impact of the freeze was already felt in the state before the judge put it on hold.

The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, which provides health care and housing for people experiencing homelessness, could not access its regular funding streams that help cover rent for hundreds of people and provide health care for thousands more. Federal funding also helps support the coalition’s staffing.

“We’re completely locked out,” said Cathy Alderman, a spokesperson for the coalition, calling the Trump administration’s move “thoughtless.” “Which means, if that����ap not resolved, we’re not going to be able to pay people’s rents next week, which might mean they’re subject to eviction. And it����ap hundreds of people.”

With the freeze in place, the state’s 20 community health centers would lose about $24 million per month, including about $9 million that goes toward payroll and other basic operations, according to the trade group Colorado Community Health Network.

About 857,000 people use community health centers in Colorado. They offer free or low-cost care to people without insurance and serve a disproportionate share of those covered by Medicaid.

“This freeze in federal funding will stress an already ailing system, jeopardizing care for the one in seven Coloradans who consider (community health centers) their primary care home,” the group said in a statement. “We know that without access to preventative primary care, patients get sicker, and treatments become more life-threatening, and more costly on the system.”

Almost two-thirds of centers operated in the red before the pause, the group’s statement said. Centers blamed the Medicaid unwinding, saying that patients previously covered by the program hadn’t found new sources of insurance and couldn’t pay for their care. In the Denver area, one network started cutting services, while another left positions vacant.

A federal funding freeze could also impact water programs, drought mitigation, environmental cleanup and wildfire prevention efforts in Colorado. Farmers and ranchers, too, are wary of what it could mean for their livelihoods.

The EPA funnels millions of dollars to Colorado to support projects ranging from improving wastewater treatment systems to capping abandoned oil and gas wells to buying electric buses for school districts.

But now, that money may dry up faster than a stream in a July drought.

Examples of recent grants announced by the EPA that could be in jeopardy include a $324.6 million grant to Colorado State University to fund three programs that would help oil and gas operators reduce methane emissions at drilling sites. That grant was announced on Dec. 23 but the paperwork to finalize it was not finished, said Becker, the former regional EPA administrator. Methane reduction is key to Colorado’s overall goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 100% by 2050.

The Upper Thompson Sanitation District in northern Colorado was set to receive a $96 million EPA loan to help replace its 51-year-old wastewater treatment infrastructure in the Estes Valley, which includes Rocky Mountain National Park. The utility serves about 15,500 permanent and seasonal residents but that loan, which was announced in September, is likely to get tied up in Trump’s freeze, Becker said.

Suzanne Jurgens, the Upper Thompson district manager, said she made six calls Tuesday to inquire about the loan’s status. No one returned her calls.

“I’m assuming no news is good news,” she said.

Grants for water infrastructure and wildfire mitigation could also be in jeopardy, said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver-based conservation and advocacy organization. Controlled burns and fuels reduction work is often completed during the winter, but that could be at risk, he said.

“What most of those grants have in common is that they’re mostly in red areas,” he said. “They’re in rural Colorado in districts represented by Republicans.”

Impact on transportation, schools, universities

Transportation systems throughout Colorado rely on federal funding, especially those overseen by the Colorado Department of Transportation. Last year, CDOT received at least $851 million in federal money, including grants and other funds.

On Tuesday, leaders at CDOT, Denver International Airport, and the Regional Transportation District were tallying the amounts, trying to assess potential impacts, and declining to specify what those may be.

“We are still reviewing recent federal actions, and it is premature to comment on the implications,” CDOT spokesman Matt Inzeo said.

Denver Public Schools is projected to receive $96 million in federal grant funding — which represents 6.7% of the district����ap general fund — for the 2024-25 academic year. This means Trump’s order could affect the district����ap Head Start program and the federal meal reimbursements DPS receives for students living in poverty as soon as next school year, said spokesman Scott Pribble.

“Without these funds, we would need to reduce services or look for other local funding sources,” he said in a statement. “Any changes to federal funding will directly impact students.”

A spokesman for the Colorado Department of Education said the agency is “aware” of the federal government����ap plan to halt federal grants and loans.

“We are working to understand the potential implications of this ‘pause’ and will share more information as soon as we have it,” spokesman Jeremy Meyer said in a statement.

Federal agencies contributed $495.4 million toward the University of Colorado Boulder’s research in 2024, making up about 67% of the institution’s research funding, according to a CU financial report.

The top federal funding agencies for CU Boulder were the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Federal awards contributed more than $169 million in CU Boulder salaries and wages in 2024, as well as more than $4 million in student aid and more than $115 million in operating expenses, according to a university financial report.

At CSU, federal sources contributed $461 million toward the university’s sponsored project funding in the 2023 to 2024 academic year, which accounted for about 80% of sponsored project funds.

A sponsored project is a program or activity supported by external, restricted funds awarded to the university, CSU said. The projects often start with a staff or faculty member and could result in research, instruction or public service, the university said.

A 2024 example of a federally funded project at CSU was a $6.2 million study paid for by a National Institutes of Health grant “to dramatically improve intervention planning and early clinical care for young children with Down syndrome.”

The fate of these projects is unclear as local universities attempt to determine what the pause on federal grants means.

Later Tuesday, CSU said officials had been notified that Pell Grants — which provide federal financial aid for students in need — would not be paused if the freeze took effect.

Nonprofits, Native American group weigh impact

The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, a Westminster-based nonprofit group serving immigrants, is “still trying to assess what programs could also be affected by the OMB memo,” said Laura Lunn, the director of advocacy and litigation.

The organization was still reeling from a blow dealt last week when one of forced RMIAN to halt several programs, including its immigration court help desk program, after receiving a stop-work order.

“Taking away access to these essential and life-saving immigration legal service programs while simultaneously ordering increases in immigration enforcement and detention that will trample community members’ rights is a shocking and gross violation of the fundamental principles of due process, equal access to justice, and to our values for caring for our community members and loved ones,” executive director Mekela Goehring said in a news release.

On top of causing challenges for the local immigrant community, the Denver Indian Center says the metro’s Native American population could feel the squeeze from the federal funding freeze. The move will affect the community center’s ability to provide emergency aid, transit services, case management and more.

It potentially could force the center to slash programs and staffing, according to a news release.

“We are doing everything we can to support our clients, but without the necessary resources, we are unable to meet the growing demand for services,” co-executive director Steve ReVello said. “Our community members are experiencing immediate hardships that could have long-term consequences if we are unable to restore this funding.”

Federal dollars critical to tribal nations, like the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute in southern Colorado, could also be at stake, said Weiss, from the Center for Western Priorities. The federal government is obligated to pay tribes to operate their law enforcement, courts, housing, water, farming and other necessary programs.

“If they hold up that money, it is going to be devastating for Indian Country,” Weiss said.

Representatives from the two tribes with land in Colorado did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

“Tribal Nations, more so than almost any other community, will be negatively impacted by this decision,” John Echohawk, executive director of Boulder-based Native American Rights Fund, said in a statement. “Tribal Nations rely on federal funding  to address essential needs, including public safety, healthcare, education, infrastructure, and the basic needs of our most vulnerable citizens.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

The pilot program has paid water users — mostly farmers and ranchers — in the four states in the Colorado River’s Upper Basin to voluntarily use less river water than their water rights allow. Farmers from Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah could choose not to irrigate some of their land or to grow a crop that uses less water.

Over the last two years, the Upper Colorado River Commission has spent $44.6 million to conserve 101,441 acre-feet of water, enough water to supply more than 200,000 households with a year’s worth of water.

But federal lawmakers late last year failed to pass a bill that would reauthorize , or SCPP. That lapse has forced the program’s managers to and has jeopardized the effort’s near-term future.

Congressional leaders from Colorado and other states in the drought-stricken river basin on Tuesday that would restart the System Conservation Pilot Program. The bill — the Colorado River Basin System Conservation Extension Act — is sponsored by lawmakers from both political parties who represent Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.

“The Colorado River’s survival depends on our ability to adapt to a drier future,” Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said of the reauthorization bill. “With SCPP, we spend less time hand wringing, and more energy finding innovative ways to conserve the West����ap most precious resource.”

But even if the bill passes, program leaders may need to find a new source of federal funding.

President Donald Trump, on the first day of his new administration, freezing . That law was part of billions of dollars of investments by former President Joe Biden’s administration into clean energy and climate change-related projects, including $125 million for the SCPP.

While more than $80 million remains allocated for the SCPP, the program cannot continue until Congress reauthorizes it and the administration allows Inflation Reduction Act spending again.

“The SCPP is essential to exploring alternative methods to severe water regulation during droughts for the citizens of Wyoming,” U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Republican, said in a news release. “It is critical that we reauthorize this program and continue exploring hydrological conditions in the Upper Basin.”

Water conservation programs like the SCPP are a crucial part of tense ongoing negotiations between the seven states that rely on the Colorado River over how to allocate the shrinking river’s water in the coming decades.

The river makes modern life possible across a vast swath of the West, providing water for approximately 40 million people and irrigating 5.5 million acres of farm land. It also provides habitat for unique and endangered species. Two decades of drought pushed the river’s two major reservoirs to their lowest levels since being filled, and climate change continues to reduce the amount of water available in the river.

The SCPP is a key part of water conservation efforts in the four states in the Upper Basin. Negotiators from those states as the river’s supplies dwindle, but they have promised to continue voluntary water conservation programs, like the SCPP.

“The upper division states are learning a lot,” said Chuck Cullom, the executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, which administers the SCPP. “They are learning lessons from these programs, both from a water management and regulatory perspective, that are helping them answer questions that they will need to answer for post-2026 Colorado River operations.”

Farmers have used SCPP money to upgrade their water infrastructure to be more drought resilient and to try out new management practices, he said.

“This funding helps them experiment with crops or practices that, from their perspective, will provide them more resiliency as they face an uncertain water future,” Cullom said.

In 2023, the program spent $16 million on 64 projects across the four Upper Basin states and conserved 37,810 acre-feet of water.

Even more people participated the following year. In 2024, the program spent $28.6 million to conserve 63,631 acre-feet of water in 110 projects — a 79% increase in the amount of water conserved.

The lapse in the program may already have excluded many agricultural producers from applying, Cullom said. Farmers need to buy seed, fertilizer and other equipment long before the spring planting season begins.

“It is already extremely late for agricultural projects (to plan and incorporate) this program in their 2025 plans,” he said. “We recognize that.”

While the vast majority of SCPP participants thus far have come from agriculture, cities and businesses can apply as well. They could still apply for the 2025 program if it is reauthorized and funded, Cullom said.

Coloradans are already seeing the effects of in their communities and on beloved public lands. The 2024 presidential election — along with congressional and other races — will have implications for energy, federal lands and climate policies that will affect millions of people in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West.

“The differences between the two candidates are pretty stark,” said Robert Duffy, who studies environmental policy, of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Harris, the Democratic nominee, calls climate change an existential threat and helped pass a major funding package to address the issue; it has funneled millions of dollars to Colorado projects.

Trump, who’s again the GOP nominee, has said it’s all a hoax — and is among Republicans who prioritize energy development and the extraction of natural resources over the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change, the environment and natural resources as a category were among the top concerns identified in the Voter Voices survey conducted this year by 30 news outlets across the state, including The Denver Post.

In Colorado, scientists say climate change will result in decreased river flows, which will impact farmers and cities as well as businesses’ ability to obtain the water they need. It will extend the wildfire season and create conditions optimal for more destructive blazes.

“If nothing is done to stem the devastation of global climate change, none of the other issues, political or otherwise, matter because there will be no world left to fight about,” said survey respondent Kathy Donald of Lakewood, who identified environmental issues as her top election concern.

The president wields major power over climate and environmental policymaking by appointing heads of departments, setting budget priorities and overseeing rulemaking in regulatory agencies, Duffy said. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Agriculture, among others, set priorities on enforcement, the use of public lands and forest management.

The president also decides how much the U.S. will participate in international climate talks and goal-setting — or whether to participate at all.

Drastically different visions

Neither major presidential candidate has included in-depth plans or proposals on their websites to deal with climate change, energy, public lands or environmental issues. But their overarching plans contrast sharply.

references her record as California’s attorney general, in which she won millions of dollars in settlements against oil companies and polluters. She pledged to continue U.S. participation in global climate talks and “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis.” If elected, Harris says she will protect public lands, improve the country’s resiliency to climate disasters and lower energy costs.

Trump’s says he promises to cut costly and burdensome regulations, and he wants make the U.S. “” by expanding oil, gas and coal power production. He would also end that cuts vehicle emissions — and encourages more sales of electric vehicles — by further limiting the amount of pollution allowed to escape through vehicle tailpipes through 2032. Climate change is neither named nor referenced in his platform.

Trump’s platform says he will end President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which “the largest investment in clean energy and climate action ever.” Harris, in her platform, touts her role as the tie-breaking vote that passed the act in the Senate.

The law poured more than $370 billion into clean energy, water projects, climate-resilient agriculture and forestry, and the protection of communities from climate-driven disasters.

Trump last month said that, if elected, money not yet spent by the time he takes office.

In Colorado, about $1.7 billion in Inflation Reduction Act money has funded expansion of projects that place solar panels on working agricultural land, has paid for tree planting in urban areas and has provided . The act also paid for better methane monitoring in the state, expanded solar panel and wind turbine manufacturing, and tax credits for more than 66,000 Colorado households to increase their energy efficiency, .

Water providers on the Western Slope are applying for $40 million to help pay for the purchase of Colorado River water rights they believe are critical for water security in the region. Across the seven-state Colorado River basin — which is struggling to adapt to flows shrunken by climate change and drought — the law provided more than $4 billion to address drought on the river, which provides water for 40 million people.

The Biden administration has made good strides over the last four years to adapt to climate change and protect Colorado’s public lands, said Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat running for reelection who serves on the House’s Natural Resources Committee.

As examples, he cited Biden’s decision to dedicate Camp Hale as a national monument and his administration’s withdrawal of a broad swath of federal land from new oil and gas development across the Thompson Divide.

“There couldn’t be a more stark contrast when it comes to protecting our public lands and protecting our progress,” Neguse said.

Some seek less federal involvement

Two Republican candidates to represent Colorado in Congress have echoed Trump’s vision supporting increased production of pollution-heavy oil, gas and coal. Their concern includes the tens of thousands of jobs directly tied to oil and gas in the state.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents the 3rd Congressional District and is running for a seat in the 4th District, focused in her response to The Denver Post’s candidate questionnaire on her opposition to “the Green New Deal schemes that would crush our oil and gas workers and further regulate our rural communities into poverty.” She has previously denied the existence of human-caused climate change.

Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction lawyer who is running for Boebert’s current seat, highlighted a need for domestic energy production as a matter of national security. Hurd wrote in his questionnaire response that the need to address climate change could be balanced with economic growth.

Permitting and regulatory reform can aid responsible energy production of all types, he said, including those that are renewable. His Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, similarly advocates an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy.

“Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District is uniquely positioned to lead: we have key resources for responsible energy development, including high-quality coal, natural gas, uranium, and minerals crucial to renewable projects,” Hurd wrote. “This can result in reliable, abundant, and affordable energy that replaces higher-carbon fuels abroad.”

While Trump’s official campaign platform lacks many policy specifics, an outside plan for his presidency — created by former members of his administration and conservative thinkers — offer a broad swath of proposed policy changes that would greatly affect the West.

In , a former Trump-era EPA official wrote the chapter on the nation’s top environmental regulation body. Trump’s — who has — wrote the chapter on the , which manages 400 national parks, 560 national wildlife refuges and nearly 250 million acres of other public lands.

Project 2025 proposes reforming U.S. Forest Service wildfire management by increasing logging and timber sales to reduce fire fuels; reversing the ban on new gas and oil development in Colorado’s Thompson Divide; and moving the BLM’s headquarters back to Grand Junction, where it was during the Trump administration. Other proposals include enacting laws allowing the BLM to “dispose humanely” of mustangs, revisiting Biden’s national monument designations and reducing federal protections for some endangered species.

Trump has denied any connection to Project 2025, but Duffy said the people who authored the plan would likely be the same people Trump would hire into his second administration.

“It����ap basically a blueprint, though Trump is denying it,” he said.

Climate as a sidelined issue?

Voters in the West consistently rank the environment and climate issues as one of their top election priorities, multiple polls show.

Colorado College’s earlier this year found that 66% of voters across eight Rocky Mountain states, including Colorado, thought climate change had had significant effects on their states in the last decade. Voters from across the political spectrum said a candidate’s stance on conservation issues would be an important factor in their voting decision.

According to 2023 polling from , 72% of Americans believe global warming is happening and 58% believe warming is primarily caused by human activity. More than half of those polled said global warming should be a high priority for the next president and Congress.

Yet, so far in this election cycle, climate and environmental issues have taken a back seat to immigration, inflation and the direction of the nation, Duffy said.

He thought climate change would take its rightful place as a central campaign issue once people started experiencing its real-world effects.

“Usually the sort of things that put anything on the political agenda is an event or a crisis,” he said. “And we’ve had repeated climate-related disasters and catastrophes over the years, and people look at it and then look away. There’s never any sustained discussion about the causes. Maybe it’s because the solutions are complicated and expensive.”

Update: In a previous version of this story, the caption of the second image misidentified the lake shown. It is Lake Granby.

The Eastern Plains district, on paper, is the most Republican-leaning in the state. In 2022, U.S. Rep. Ken Buck won reelection by nearly 24 percentage points, about in line with given the 4th’s partisan makeup.

But like all things concerning U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert����ap political career, this is not a typical election year — especially as she looks to represent the sprawling district that’s geographically opposite from the one that put her in federal office. Her switch has drawn money and attention to the 4th well beyond its usual level.

Boebert headed to Congress to represent the Western Slope after taking out a Republican incumbent in an upset primary win in 2020. Two years later, after a controversy–laden first term, she pulled off a razor-close win in her reelection bid that left her looking vulnerable.

When she announced in late December that she would move to the eastern Colorado district — which includes great expanses of farmland from Wyoming to Oklahoma as well as suburban Denver’s Douglas County —  she upended the race to replace Buck, who’d announced he wouldn’t seek reelection.

Sensing, or perhaps hoping, that Boebert’s general election weakness from 2022 could linger, those looking to unseat Boebert in the Nov. 5 election have given millions of dollars in recent months to her main opponent, Democrat Trisha Calvarese. Calvarese is on pace to raise 10 times what the last Democratic nominee there did, analysts predict, and she hopes to prove conventional wisdom wrong about how deep the 4th District’s partisan divide is.

It all leads to a make-or-break election for Boebert — and for those looking to oust her from Congress.

A convincing victory would cement her place in Colorado politics and affirm her ascendancy among Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. But a lack of incumbency in her new district, along with Boebert����ap recent scandals, give Calvarese hope that she can find a path, slight as it might be, to stop that from happening.

Boebert, 37, has fended off other competitors this year.

She won three times as many votes as her next-closest rival in the crowded Republican primary this summer, showing that her reputation as a conservative fighter carried just as much weight there as in her previous home.

On the same day as the June primary, Calvarese lost a separate special election — by a margin of 24 percentage points — to Republican Greg Lopez to fill out the rest of Buck’s current term after he stepped down early.

For the next term, the November ballot also includes Frank Atwood, of the Approval Voting Party; Hannah Goodman, of the Libertarian Party; and Paul Noel Fiorino, of the Unity Party.

Sparring over Boebert’s past

Despite the 4th District’s clear Republican advantage, Calvarese, 38, calls the race against Boebert “absolutely winnable,” and she points to finding Boebert underwater in favorability with her new district’s voters.

Calvarese has so far turned the influx of cash she’s received — more than $2.3 million in donations since the June primary — into TV ads seeking to further define Boebert for voters who may have only watched her from afar, while also introducing herself to the district.

At a recent meet-and-greet with Democrats in Loveland, Calvarese mostly focused on her own biography: Working with the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of labor unions, she helped push key parts of President Joe Biden’s agenda. Through work with the U.S. National Science Foundation, she focused on boosting manufacturing in the country.

Her parents’ cancer diagnoses brought her home from Virginia last year to provide them with end-of-life care. She said her late parents, lifelong Republicans, both urged her to give everything she could to help her community. Calvarese now lives in Highlands Ranch, where she grew up.

She didn’t shy from digging at Boebert at the Loveland event. She highlighted her opponent’s removal from a performance of the musical “Beetlejuice” last year in Denver, where security cameras recorded her vaping, apparently groping her date and flipping off staff. Calvarese also highlighted Boebert’s vote against a bill to expand health care coverage for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn bits.

The latter, including Boebert heckling Biden as he discussed the program during his State of the Union speech, is the subject of Calvarese’s first TV ad. Boebert’s campaign says her no vote was over concerns about funding for the program, and she previously said the heckling was about the 13 soldiers killed as U.S. forces pulled out of Afghanistan in 2021.

“(Voters in the district) want representation,” Calvarese said, calling the interest in her campaign “electric.”

“They are hungry for it,” she added. “And unlike Boebert, I didn’t ditch one district for another one after embarrassing myself at ‘Beetlejuice.’ ”

Boebert: New district “has liberated me”

Boebert switched districts after winning the 3rd Congressional District in 2022 and in the aftermath of a contentious divorce from her husband. She moved to Windsor, in the northern Interstate 25 corridor.

Speaking to a gathering of Elbert County conservatives on Wednesday night, Boebert pinned the move explicitly to family matters and called it “one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made,” but also one of the best when it comes to her children.

Still, she acknowledged the political benefits of the move.

“We’re not taking our heavy R advantage for granted,” Boebert said of her political affiliation. “We either run unopposed or like we’re 10 points behind. However, being in a more Republican district … has liberated me to help Republicans statewide. So every day isn’t an in-the-mud fight. I am able to stand strong for far more than I ever would have anywhere else.”

The Republican advantage in the district can’t be understated, political analysts say.

Dick Wadhams, a Republican consultant and former state party chairman, called it “virtually unlosable for a Republican candidate.” Kyle Saunders, a political science professor at Colorado State University, echoed the sentiment, calling it “the safest Republican district in Colorado.”

Boebert, too, been a strong fundraiser, though she hasn’t disclosed more recent totals yet. New reports are due from both candidates this week.

Boebert����ap speech Wednesday, at a rented church, weaved between sermon and politics as she invoked scripture and the Founding Fathers.

She likened the nation’s recent elections to Moses and the Israelites running into the Red Sea, facing the obstacles thrown up by Biden’s policies. To part that sea, voters must have faith — and vote — this November, she said.

She said that under former President Donald Trump, who’s again the Republican nominee, the country had a booming economy and a secure U.S.-Mexico border.

“This isn’t a Christian nationalist story here,” Boebert told the crowd, directly referencing a 2022 Denver Post story about her close ideological alignment with the movement. “This is about life and peace and personal freedom. Not the immorality of our national debt … this is about securing our nation and securing our people. Securing our freedoms that are not given to us by dirty, corrupt, greedy politicians.

“They are given to us by God and secured in our Constitution.”

In an interview, Boebert also highlighted specific local legislation she’s championed as part of the key stakes in the race, including a bill to help Pueblo transition following the closure of a chemical plant there that was approved as part of the National Defense Authorization Act. Another was a bill to give small Colorado communities unique ZIP codes.

Chance to “restore honor to our district”

Calvarese likewise highlights the hyper-local issues on the minds of district voters: How to spur local manufacturing of the pesticides that farmers rely on and research on better crop yields, as well as how to help people get into tech fields through training with large language models (the basis of artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT). She also mentions the health care needs of the district and her parents’ struggles in finding care in Douglas County.

But in the big-picture stakes of the race, Calvarese returns to her opponent.

The election is a chance to “restore honor to our district” and “dignity” to Coloradans caught in the crossfire of Boebert’s public incidents, she said.

“When you are a person from Colorado and you meet other people from other states — or even around the world — the first thing you don’t want to hear is, ‘Oh my God, Lauren Boebert: that embarrassment,’ ” Calvarese said. “So I think it����ap a real opportunity for us. Not just Colorado, but the whole country.”

Asked to respond to Calvarese’s comment about dignity, Boebert said she was proud of her dignity. She also highlighted Calvarese’s own relatively recent return to the district and her work on the Inflation Reduction Act. Boebert characterized the IRA as raising the national debt in order to push “the Green New Deal” championed by some progressives.

“To me, that is not dignity at all,” Boebert said. “That is deception at its finest — lying to the American people about the policies that you were pushing and (which are) obviously costing Americans each and every day.”

The results of the race could last longer than just this election cycle.

Wadhams, the Republican consultant, called Boebert’s 2022 nail-biter the result of “extraordinary circumstances” following a term in office that left many voters there unhappy. Chief among them: a perception that Boebert was more focused on national attention than on serving the district.

This race gives her a chance to reset — and if she focuses on the needs of the district, he said, it could be hers for the long haul.

It����ap a sentiment echoed by Saunders, the CSU professor. Though the race has drawn a lot of attention and Democratic money, both could dry up after a decisive win next month. With longevity — and political safety — would come the opportunity for Boebert to build even more influence in the Republican Party.

“You can always lose,” Saunders said. “But she could be in that seat for 20 years, very easily.”

As Ganahl criticized Polis’s environmental policy, the governor interjected: “Her answer to every question is ‘Jared Polis, Jared Polis.'”

“It is,” Ganahl retorted. “Polis is the problem.”

Fewer than four weeks remain until Election Day, and the first televised debate between the pair was a rapid-fire, often combative affair. They clashed over drugs, inflation, housing policy, abortion, the Marshall fire and more over the course of the night, which was joint-hosted by CBS4 and the Colorado Sun.

As has been the case throughout the campaign, Polis defended his record and pledged to address the systemic problems facing the state, while Ganahl hammered his handling of crime and inflation in particular. Here are some of the other key differences highlighted Thursday.

Abortion

Asked if he would support an effort to end a constitutional ban on using state funds for abortion services, Polis was noncommital and said he’d have to read any potential initiative first to make sure it didn’t have “unintended consequences.” But he reaffirmed his broader pro-abortion rights beliefs.

Ganahl, asked if she would sign a bill limiting abortion if it came across her desk as governor, said she thought it should be a question for voters. She pledged to not make “substantive changes” to abortion laws in the state without seeking to have it decided on the ballot.

Taxes and inflation

Polis has stressed his efforts to curb fees and to push for tax refund checks early over the past year. Though moderators noted several of those maneuvers are temporary, he again touted various savings Thursday night as efforts to help stave off the worst effects of inflation.

He said he wanted to find ways to permanently constrain the growth of property taxes and that he supported lowering and even “trying to abolish” the income tax, as Ganahl has pledged to do. But he criticized her plan and said it would slash funding for schools, law enforcement and state government generally. He has said he would support replacing the income tax with other revenue-raisers for the state.

Ganahl maintained that a hiring freeze, the use of TABOR money, eliminating tax exemptions and the reversion of fees to taxes — via voter approval — made her plan feasible and that Polis’s efforts to grow state government had negatively impacted the state.

Fentanyl

Ganahl — like Republican candidates across the state — repeatedly hit on Colorado’s overdose crisis, one that dovetails with a national trend and a broader shift in the drug supply, and laid it at Polis’s feet. In her opening statement, she claimed that the state was “No. 2 in fentanyl deaths” nationally, and at one point, Ganahl asked Polis to apologize to parents whose children have died after ingesting the drug.

Polis, who signed a bipartisan 2019 bill that made it a misdemeanor to possess 4 grams or fewer of several substances, including fentanyl, noted that Colorado’s death rate isn’t the second-worst in the country ( indicate Colorado is in the middle of the pack for death rates nationally). Polis noted his support for new criminal penalties for pill presses and tighter sentences for dealers.

The exchange grew testy, with both candidates talking over each other.

“Tell the parents who lost their children to fentanyl why you signed that bill,” Ganahl said.

“Exactly, that’s why you shouldn’t be going around misleading people that we’re the top,” he shot back. “It’s tragic enough.”

Crime

Like with fentanyl, Ganahl and the GOP have hammered Polis and the Democrats on Colorado’s crime levels for months. Ganahl did so again Thursday, pledging to clean house and replace the state’s parole board and the heads of multiple state departments. She also said she’d push for tighter penalties for various criminal offenses, including possession of fentanyl.

“Public safety will be my number one priority,” she said.

Polis, who has repeatedly touted his pledge to make Colorado a top-10 safest state, said it wasn’t a “political, conservative, liberal discussion; it should be a data-driven discussion.” He noted that the money had been set aside to hire and retain law enforcement, and he said he was open to tighter penalties.

“You show me that a penalty here increases safety and decreases crime, we’re for it,” he said. “It makes us less safe? I’m against it.”

Housing

Housing affordability remains a top priority for Coloradans, as the market cools and rents increase. Polis expressed support for “modular, pre-fab homes” — those built in factories, rather than on-site — which had previously been given a boost via legislation he signed in May.

Ganahl blamed Polis for making housing more expensive in Colorado and said she supported community housing and shared spaces, like kitchens.

Polis interjected to ask her what he had done to make housing more expensive, noting that zoning and other control measures were handled by local authorities. Ganahl said she had friends in Superior whose homes were lost to the Marshall Fire, and she blame Polis’s “Green New Deal” policies for making their rebuilds more expensive. Residents rebuilding after the fire had chafed at local policies around homebuilding earlier this year.

Conspiracies

Ganahl garnered scrutiny earlier this month for repeatedly claiming that students across Colorado were identifying as cats and that schools were “tolerating” it. School districts rebuked that notion, and Polis brought up the claim repeatedly Thursday. He accused Ganahl of suggesting schools were using litter boxes, too, a falsehood repeated elsewhere but not by Ganahl (she interjected to say that “was not true”).

He asked Ganahl directly how she would be a “reality-based governor,” given the cat claims and that her running mate, Danny Moore, had called the 2020 election “the great steal.”

Ganahl, who sidestepped the cat-conspiracy jab, said she spoke to parents and voters across the state and heard their concerns. She then accused Polis of acting like a “spoiled brat” when he speaks with constituents.

Education

Ganahl has repeatedly linked the kids-are-identifying-as-cats story to educational performance. She’s said the behavior — which districts say isn’t an issue they deal with — is a distraction, and she’s linked that to test scores showing students struggling to read at grade level.

On Thursday, she called for better teacher pay, increased “school choice” — a call out to charter schools — and cuts to administrative positions. She advocated for increased transparency at a state level for curriculum.

Polis touted the passage of universal preschool and early childhood education, and he indicated he supported local control of curriculum and schools in general. He said Ganahl’s plans were great — if she were running for school board.

This time, the two men vying to represent Colorado’s 4th Congressional District — which encompasses much of eastern Colorado — debated at a retirement community, with no live streaming or recordings.

It was, in Buck’s estimation, a more civil and productive affair than the showdown two years ago, a sign that the pair — current and likely future foes — have moved onto more substantive ground.

” I didn’t try to summarize his views of the world, and he didn’t try to summarize mine,” said Buck, who’s running for a fourth term. “We just both talked about why we think our role – our policy differences are favorable for the voters.”

McCorkle, a father of four and twice-enlisted Marine who rejoined after Sept. 11, said he thought he did “miserably” in that first debate, back in 2020. This time, he said, he felt much more confident.

That’s true for how he thinks he’ll fare in November, too, but he faces a difficult road: The district he hopes to represent is , and Buck, a former prosecutor, beat McCorkle by more than 23 points in 2020. The only Democrat to win the seat in recent memory was Betsy Markey in 2008, a blue-wave election.

Buck praised McCorkle for having improved his message and approach over the past four years. He’s running for Ike now, Buck said, rather than just against Buck. But he wasn’t unduly concerned: Asked how he was feeling a month out from Election Day, Buck chuckled.

“About my race? In the 4th Congressional District? Pretty good,” he said.

McCorkle, who said one of his top priorities is rural reinvestment and addressing climate change, said he figured he’d lose in 2020, and he views his bid to unseat Buck as a “multi-cycle” project that won’t end on Nov. 9. Every time he runs, he said, he makes more connections and, he hopes, flips more votes.

“I think it takes time and effort and hard work to get in front of people and have those tough conversations and win those hearts, minds, trust and confidence and votes and flip a district,” he said.

While McCorkle works to build name recognition, Buck already has it: He was the district attorney in Weld County before he won the seat in 2014, after Cory Gardner jumped to the Senate (Buck unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2010). He’s cruised to re-election repeatedly and has outraised opponents in nearly every election. He’s done so again this year: Buck entered the summer with $543,000 in the bank, outstripping McCorkle, who fell just short of $200,000.

“There’s no question that Ken Buck will be re-elected in November,” said Kristi Burton Brown, the chairwoman of the Colorado Republican Party, a position Buck previously held. “He’s also a very popular congressman overall in CD-4. He’s been there for quite a while, and represented I think the interests of that district very well, whereas Ike McCorkle has been a part of some very, very liberal, out-there Democrat organizations.”

Buck said he planned to continue his focus on pursuing anti-trust regulatory efforts against Big Tech companies. It’s become a recent cornerstone of his, and he’s partnered with fellow Coloradan and Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse on a package that passed the House of Representatives in late September. He describes himself as “100% pro-life” on his website, and his other key issues include “absolute” support for the Second Amendment and addressing immigration, inflation and crime.

He repeatedly pledged to work with Democrats on legal issues, like blocking forced arbitration for sexual harassment complaints, and praised his partnership with Neguse.

to his campaign platform, ranging from support for affordable housing, the Green New Deal, Medicare for All and campaign finance reform. He told The Denver Post that he believes all campaigns should be publicly funded and that his biggest priority is reinvesting in agriculture and rural Colorado.

Buck’s critics cast him as an extremist who has drifted further to the right since his initial election eight years ago. Jason Bane, a Democratic political operative, said Buck had been a standard conservative Republican before 2020 and that he’d slid since. Morgan Carroll, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, agreed and said Buck’s career had spiraled “from law enforcement to yes-man for lawlessness and refusal to speak against the effort to violently overthrow a US election.”

Buck took issue with the suggestion that he supported the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, which he called a riot. He cast his decision to vote against certifying the 2020 election results, and his decision to sign on to a Texas lawsuit that further challenged them, as an effort to ensure that state legislatures and secretaries of state were following the Constitution. He called for more transparency in the voting process to support public trust.

It would take “something unusual” for the vote to go against Buck in November, Bane said. McCorkle, he said, was doing the best he could with what he had.

“He’s filling a void,” he said, “and I think doing his best to challenge in a district that just, frankly, isn’t winnable for Democrats.”

McCorkle was undeterred and didn’t blink when asked if he’d run again in 2024, should he lose this time around.

“We’re in it to win it,” he said. “Until we win it.”

Re: “ ‘It����ap tough, tough’ — Colorado’s coal country searches for ‘the next thing’ to keep workers afloat,” May 16 news story

I was more sickened as I read each sentence in Sunday’s article. Quote after quote described how our legislature has voted to dismantle the coal industry in our state. As the article explains, they did this without a clue as to how the contribution to our state’s economy will be replaced or the needs of thousands put out of work with the stroke of the governor’s pen will be addressed.

I would submit that is not how real leaders operate. I guess our legislature has once again proven we need to elect leaders instead of those simply driving an agenda blindly! The ill-conceived green plan is shoving thousands of our best out of work. The people who are the fiber of the communities are being destroyed.

Teachers: We don’t need them anymore because the students are leaving with their parents. Who’s going to answer the call when a fire erupts? Those volunteer firemen and the other pillars of the community are also leaving to seek reemployment.

Is this damage repairable? It doesn’t look good. Worse, a group of geniuses are now proposing a ballot measure to gut the agriculture industry in our state. You better educate yourself on the PAUSE campaign. That could prove to be the final nail leading to the demise of The Centennial State!

God help Colorado and these United States of America.

Paul C. Gremse, Denver

I lived in Paonia and Hotchkiss from 1996-2011. The coal companies shut down the mines when they run them out of coal. They do not last forever and the coal companies are clear regarding how long they will work a mine. It is not political; it is about their profit.

The North Fork Valley has had a boom/ bust economy historically. It����ap a hard place to make it unless you bring your own money. Ten years ago it was nearly dead after the housing crash. Sorry to see Hays Drug Store close, though.

I found that the people in that valley formed a diverse community that was very close. Everybody pulled together.

Former Valley Girl,

Nancy Arrowood, Centennial

Homeowners in the WUI must be responsible

Re: “High country, high risks,” May 16 commentary

Sue McMillin wrote that we Coloradoans need to take a “holistic approach” to the problem of fire in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). She wrote about clearing trees around houses, community action and fire-resistant structures but said nothing about the ecological costs of the sprawl of houses into forests. We are fracturing forests, destroying wildlife habitat by constructing dwellings accompanied by roads, pets, tree cutting, and non-native landscaping. Occupants of the WUI may feel they are “getting back to nature” but really are causing its gradual death.

We spend hundreds of millions of public dollars protecting these private properties. Yet our fire fighting fails to stop the giant fires because a century of fire suppression has tremendously built up fuels and now global warming is heating and drying the fuels. Who will pay for reversing our accumulated damage? It is not just the people building the houses. It will be all of us. Inevitably, we won’t spend enough to prevent or stop the big conflagrations.

We are subsidizing — through firefighting services and home mortgage tax breaks — increasingly fancy second homes being built in the WUI. So here are three “holistic” answers to the problem of wildfire: 1. Mandate that anyone who lives in WUI shall pay the full cost of fighting fires to protect their properties. 2. End the tax deduction for second homes. 3. Declare that certain large zones of our forests will no longer be protected through fire fighting, allowing natural fire to restore the health of those forests.

Gary Sprung, Boulder

I found the factual objectivity in this opinion feature encouraging. Wildland health may be viewed and evaluated much like personal health. The natural variability of life and health may be impacted, positively or negatively, by lifestyle and choices made internally, by the individual, and externally through the choices and influences of others.

The prolonged suppression of the natural occurrence and course of wildland fires has yielded similar results to a personal lifestyle devoid of activities and choices in the best interest of sustained health and viability.

Wildlands in the western United States must burn as nature has always intended. This in no way means human civilization should not inhabit wildland areas. All that is required is a much more focused and cognizant awareness of the risks involved and requisite requirements mutually beneficial to the long-term health and well-being of human inhabitants and wildland host — a new and challenging symbiosis but an undertaking that is exceedingly doable.

Douglass Croot, Highlands Ranch

Casting blame in deadly Mideast rocket exchanges

Re: “Israel unleashes airstrikes; Hamas answers with rockets — Mideast clash worsens,” May 13 news story

The subtitle above the headline of your front-page story is backward and inaccurate. It should read, “Hamas unleashes rockets; Israel answers with airstrikes.”

If the terrorist organization Hamas were not sending lethal rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel with the goal of murdering Israeli civilians, there would be no airstrikes against Hamas militants from the Israel Defense Forces.

I hope that this correction will be placed on the front page. Your incorrect slanted sub-headline is propaganda.

Sara L. Gilbert, Denver

I was heartened, and not surprised, when some Jews turned out for the Palestinian protest in Denver. Lot����ap of bad politics and violence in the Middle East, but we Americans have a message. We have tried (repeatedly) racial and religious biased government and found it is pointless, does not work, and is just so wrong.

If not all persons are created equal, pretty much all persons are permanently at war.

Hamas is no better than their bigoted Iranian sponsors, but when Israeli Jews persist in their endless land grabs and disrespect, they’re in for trouble.

Spare me the rafts of lawyers and rabbis and imams; sadly, there is no longer any moral high ground in Jerusalem. Zionism was a quaint 19th-century racist idea, and we live with the consequences.

Richard Opler, Parker

Questioning judgment

Re: “Lamborn’s obvious lapses in judgment,” May 16 editorial

The choice of topic is the first curious aspect of Sunday’s editorial. There is a lot going on in the world. Thousands of rockets are being fired into and out of our long-time ally Israel. Thousands of unaccompanied children have crossed our borders illegally after being handed over to a drug and human smuggling cartel; we have no idea how many are injured, raped, or die on the journey. The price of gas, building supplies, and much more is rising rapidly. Yet The Denver Post rails against Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn for letting his son sleep in the basement of the U.S. Capitol and because some staffers ran errands and one sent an email soliciting $10 for a Christmas gift for the Lamborns.

Lamborn also allegedly failed to protect his staff from COVID. For this, “Doug Lamborn should be in trouble.”

Meanwhile, our new president����ap son admitted on television he was paid millions by a Ukrainian energy company based on bearing his father’s last name. Further, what about the claim that President Biden was in for a 10% cut on a billion-dollar deal with China? When will we see an editorial on that, which, if true, would seriously compromise our president? Or perhaps an editorial explaining how the media is not politically biased?

Stephen C. McKenna, Greenwood Village

Who writes the headlines for your editorials? Must be someone from Monty Python because the one for your commentary on Doug Lamborn gave me the best laugh I’ve had during the entire pandemic. These weren’t lapses of judgment; these were examples of Lamborn’s complete lack of judgment — a stellar example of the hypocrisy and inability to own up to mistakes that seem to have infected all politicians at all levels.

Rich Jarboe, Arvada

Establish Jan. 6 commission

Re: “House votes to establish panel on Capitol breach,” May 21 news story

The House has voted to create an independent commission on the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Now it is up to the Senate to vote.

Their question is: Which would limit the political damage to the party and their own political future, a yes vote or a no vote? Then there is a third option: Just do the right thing for the sake of our country and our democracy.

Gene Sabatka, Arvada

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Haaland was confirmed by a 51-40 vote, the narrowest margin yet for a Cabinet nomination by President Joe Biden. Four Republicans voted yes: Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Democrats and tribal groups hailed Haaland’s confirmation as historic, saying her selection means that Indigenous people — who lived in North America before the United States was created — will for the first time see a Native American lead the powerful department where decisions on relations with the nearly 600 federally recognized tribes are made. Interior also oversees a host of other issues, including energy development on public lands and waters, national parks and endangered species.

“Rep. Haaland’s confirmation represents a gigantic step forward in creating a government that represents the full richness and diversity of this country,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

“Native Americans for far too long have been neglected at the Cabinet level and in so many other places,” Schumer said.

Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo and a 35th-generation resident of New Mexico. Her nomination has been closely watched by tribal communities across the country, with some virtual parties drawing hundreds of people to watch her two-day confirmation hearing last month.

Supporters projected a photo of Haaland, a two-term congresswoman who represents greater Albuquerque, on the side of the Interior building in downtown Washington with text that read “Our Ancestors’ Dreams Come True.”

Many Native Americans see Haaland, 60, as someone who will elevate their voices and protect the environment and tribes’ rights. Her selection break a two-century pattern of non-Native officials, mostly male, serving as the top federal official over American Indian affairs. The federal government often worked to dispossess tribes of their land and, until recently, to assimilate them into white culture.

“It is long past time that an American Indian serve as the secretary of the Interior,” said Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians, the nation’s oldest and largest tribal organization.

“The nation needs her leadership and vision to help lead our response to climate change, to steward our lands and cultural resources and to ensure that across the federal government, the United States lives up to its trust and treaty obligations to tribal nations and our citizens,” Sharp said.

Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, called Haaland’s confirmation “an unprecedented and monumental day for all first people of this country. Words cannot express how overjoyed and proud we are to see one of our own confirmed to serve in this high-level position.″

Haaland’s confirmation “sets us on a better path to righting the wrongs of the past with the federal government and inspires hope in our people, especially our young people,” Nez added.

Lopez Whiteskunk, a former tribal council member of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in southwest Colorado, said Haaland’s confirmation as the first Native American U.S. cabinet secretary demonstrates the dignity and resilience of Indigenous people despite the atrocities and traumas they have endured. Haaland won’t have to be educated about the importance of public lands and other issues to tribes, she added.

“Public lands are public lands and they belong to all of us, but we have to remember and acknowledge that these public lands have strong ties to the Indigenous peoples, whether it����ap through ceremonial values or stories,” Lopez Whiteskunk said. “We still live with a lot of our cultural customs and how we utilize the plants, the animals, the water — the environment is important.”

Although Haaland faced tough questioning from senators who challenged her stances on climate change and limiting drilling on public lands, Lopez Whiteskunk said she had faith the congresswoman would be confirmed.

“She’s a tough gal and she’s very smart,” said Lopez Whiteskunk, who has met Haaland. “What she brings to the table is two forms of education: her cultural and Indiginous education as well as her formal education.”

Not everyone was celebrating. Some Republican senators have criticized Haaland’s views on oil drilling and other energy development as “radical” and extreme, citing her opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline and her support for the Green New Deal, a sweeping, if mostly aspirational, policy to address climate change and income inequality.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Haaland’s “extreme views” and support of “catastrophic legislation” such as the Green New Deal would make her confirmation as interior secretary disastrous, harming America’s energy supply and economy.

“American jobs are being sacrificed in the name of the Biden agenda, and Rep. Haaland couldn’t defend it,” Barrasso said last week, referring to decisions by Biden to reject the Keystone XL pipeline and impose a moratorium on new oil and gas leases on federal lands.

Barrasso also faulted Haaland’s support for continued protection for grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region of the Rocky Mountains, despite a recommendation by the Fish and Wildlife Service that about 700 bears in parts of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho no longer need protections.

“Rep. Haaland has chosen to ignore the science and the scientists of the very department that she is now nominated to lead,” Barrasso said, calling on Interior to remove protections for the grizzly under the Endangered Species Act.

Barrasso and several other Western senators missed the vote, citing a severe winter storm that dumped 3 feet of snow on parts of Colorado and Wyoming, causing multiple flight cancellations. Fellow Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis and Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado also missed the vote.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she appreciates Haaland’s leadership in the House on a range of issues, adding that Haaland’s status as a Native American “will give us an extra advantage on (tribal) issues that are so important to Indian Country overall.”

Murkowski said she had “some real misgivings” about Haaland because of her views on oil drilling and other energy issues, but said Native Alaskans, an important constituency in her rural state, had urged her to back Haaland.

“Quite honestly, we need (Haaland) to be a success,″ Murkowski said.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said he was disappointed at the rhetoric used by Barrasso and other Republicans. Heinrich, who lives in Haaland’s district, called her confirmation historic and said she “always has an open door and an open mind” to a range of views.

Fellow New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, who presided over the Senate during the vote on Haaland’s nomination, said she brings “a unique and long-overdue perspective” to the Interior Department����ap mission to protect natural resources and honor responsibilities to tribes and other native people.

“I have no doubt that Secretary Haaland will leave an indelible mark on the Department of Interior, and I look forward to continuing to work with her to make a difference for the people of New Mexico,” he said.

The Denver Post����ap Judith Kohler contributed to this report.

“We should never build another wind turbine in Texas,” read a Tuesday Facebook post from Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. “The experiment failed big time.”

“This is a perfect example of the need for reliable energy sources like natural gas & coal,” tweeted U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican from Montana, on Tuesday.

In reality, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as frozen wind turbines and solar panels, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the state’s power grid, said in a press conference Tuesday.

Still a variety of misleading claims spread on social media around renewable energy, with wind turbines and the Green New Deal getting much of the attention.

A viral photo of a helicopter de-icing a wind turbine was shared with claims it showed a “chemical” solution being applied to one of the massive wind generators in Texas. The only problem? The photo was taken in Sweden years ago, not in the U.S. in 2021. The helicopter sprayed hot water onto the wind turbine, not chemicals.

Other social media users, including Republican U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, puzzlingly labeled the Green New Deal as the culprit. Boebert tweeted on Monday that the proposal was “proven unsustainable as renewables are clearly unreliable.”

But the Green New Deal is irrelevant, as no version of it exists in Texas or nationwide, said Mark Jacobson, director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University.

“It����ap really natural gas and coal and nuclear that are providing the bulk of the electricity and that����ap the bulk of the cause of the blackouts,” Jacobson told The Associated Press.

ERCOT said Tuesday that of the 45,000 total megawatts of power that were offline statewide, about 30,000 consisted of thermal sources — gas, coal and nuclear plants — and 16,000 came from renewable sources.

On top of that, while Texas has ramped up wind energy in recent years, the state still relies on wind power for only about 25% of its total electricity, according to ERCOT data.

“It����ap not like we were relying on it to ride us through this event,” Joshua Rhodes, a research associate at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin, told the AP. “Nor would it have been able to save us even if it were operating at 100% capacity right now. We just don’t have enough of it.”

The agency confirmed that wellhead freeze-offs and other issues curtailing supply in natural gas systems were primarily to blame for new outages on Tuesday, after severe winter weather caused failures across multiple fuel types in recent days.

Renewable energy is a popular scapegoat for new problems as more frequent extreme weather events strain infrastructure, according to Emily Grubert, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.

“It����ap easy to focus on the thing that you can see changing as the source of why an outcome is changing,” Grubert told the AP. “The reality is that managing our systems is becoming more difficult. And that����ap something that is easy to blame on the reaction to it, but it����ap not actually the root cause.”

An Associated Press analysis of government data shows the permit stockpiling has centered on oil-rich federal lands in New Mexico and Wyoming. It accelerated during the fall as Biden was cementing his lead over President Donald Trump and peaked in December, aided by speedier permitting approvals since Trump took office.

The goal for companies is to lock in drilling rights on oil and gas leases on vast public lands where they make royalty payments on any resources extracted. Biden wants to end new drilling on those same lands as part of his overhaul of how Americans get energy, with the goal of making the nation carbon neutral by 2050.

Companies submitted more than 3,000 drilling permit applications in a three-month period that included the election, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Officials approved almost 1,400 drilling applications during that time amidst the pandemic. That����ap the highest number of approvals during Trump’s four-year term, according to AP’s analysis.

In Colorado, a dozen permits are approved or pending to drill in Pawnee National Grassland, a birding destination where wildflowers and cactuses bloom below the buttes.

In Wyoming’s Thunder Basin National Grassland, a prairie expanse that abounds with wildlife and offers hiking, fishing and hunting, oil companies EOG Resources and Devon Energy — which amassed the most federal permits this year — have permission to drill three dozen wells among fields of sage brush.

The administration issued more than 4,700 drilling permits in 2020 — comparable to approval numbers from early last decade when oil topped $100 a barrel, roughly twice the current price.

INVITATION TO DRILL

Making it easier to drill was a centerpiece of Trump’s effort to boost American energy production in part by enticing companies onto lands and offshore areas run by the U.S. departments of Interior and Agriculture.

Under Trump, crude production from federal and tribal lands and waters increased sharply, topping a billion barrels in 2019. That was up by almost a third from the last year of the Obama administration.

But this year the coronavirus pandemic and crashing oil prices caused many companies to curtail their activity.

With markets still in flux and oil producers slashing budgets, major companies nevertheless have been acquiring enough permits to keep pumping through Biden’s upcoming term. The government approved about 500 new drilling permits in September, more than double the same month in 2019.

The oil industry’s fear is that Biden will follow through on campaign pledges and make it impossible or much harder to drill on public lands. “You go from having a champion in the White House, who steers the entire federal apparatus to wanting you to be successful, to someone who is hostile to the industry,” said Tom Pyle, a former Republican aide on Capitol Hill who now leads the industry group American Energy Alliance.

For Biden supporters, the stockpiling threatens parts of an ambitious climate agenda before the Democrat can get into the White House. Oil and gas extracted from public lands and waters generates the equivalent of almost 550 million tons (500 metric tons) of greenhouse gases annually, the U.S. Geological Survey said in a 2018 study.

Trump administration critics say officials enabled the industry to reach its goals, noting that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and others have boasted how speedily permits were processed.

Bureau of Land Management spokesman Chris Tollefson said the agency had streamlined permitting while still following environmental laws.

“Markets, not the BLM, determine how oil and gas developers decide to acquire and develop leases,” he said.

Processing times for completed applications to the BLM have dropped from almost 140 days on average in the last year of Obama’s administration to 44 days in fiscal year 2019, according to congressional testimony by Interior officials. In 2020, some companies had permits awarded in a little over a month, AP found. Other permits took longer but an average could not be determined.

YEARS WORTH OF PERMITS

To undo the late-term awarding of so many permits, a former senior Interior Department official said the Biden administration could be forced to pay millions of dollars to companies to get them to relinquish drilling rights. Such a scenario played out in pristine areas of Montana where officials spent decades trying to buy out companies with drilling leases near Glacier National Park.

“This is classic, end of administration stuff, but for the Trump administration it����ap on steroids,” said Jim Lyons, deputy assistant secretary of Interior under Obama.

Houston-based EOG Resources amassed the most permits this year — 1,024 — including 549 since September, according to AP’s analysis.

In total, EOG has about 2,500 federal permits approved or in progress. “If he (Biden) tries to impose some regulations on how new federal permits are issued, we certainly already have an inventory, a large inventory, of existing federal permits that will sustain activity for several years,” company CEO Lloyd Helms told a November investors conference.

Oklahoma-based Devon Energy collected the second-highest number this year. As the presidential campaign wore on this summer, Devon executives assured investors that the company was amassing permits. By October, Vice President David Harris said the company had enough “federal drilling permits in hand that essentially cover all of our desired activity over the next presidential term.”

Devon’s more than 500 permits secured this year resulted from a long-term business strategy, not a political calculation, said spokeswoman Lisa Adams. “It was something in the works for years,” Adams said.

POTENTIAL MORATORIUM

Biden is nominating New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as interior secretary. And Haaland, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal by liberal Democrats, has said she opposes fracking and drilling on public land.

Even if Biden doesn’t immediately ban new permits, he could place a moratorium on them to study the situation in more detail, said Leo Mariani, managing director of equity research at KeyBank Capital Markets.

Most companies have up to two years to act on federal permits, so a one-year moratorium wouldn’t have much impact on oil supply and they could shift production to private or state-owned land, Mariani said.

But such a shift would come at a cost, because royalty rates on private or state-owned land can be twice as much as federal land. “Because the break-evens are so much lower, you’re not going to see every dollar re-allocated to other places,” said Parker Fawcett, analyst for S&P Global Platts Analytics.

With a ban on new federal drilling permits, U.S. production could fall by about 1 million barrels per day, or about 10%, by 2024, Fawcett estimates. “You will have a supply impact.”

Producers started talking about mitigating their risks about a year ago after Democratic presidential candidate and Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she would ban fracking on federal lands, said Artem Abramov, partner and head of shale research at Rystad Energy.

Then companies began amassing federal drilling permits at more than $10,000 apiece.

More than 60% of the permit applications filed over the past year were in New Mexico, where about a quarter of the state budget comes from oil and gas revenues. And 20% of the permit applications were filed in Wyoming, where Gov. Mark Gordon says the state budget has taken a one-third revenue hit mainly because of the oil downturn.

“I definitely wouldn’t expect the New Mexican state government to support radical moves,” Abramov said. “They would push Biden toward a more gradual approach” to the oil and gas industry.