The federal aid will help Custer, Dolores, Ouray and Pueblo counties cover the costs of debris removal and repairs to public infrastructure, including roads, water systems and electric grids, Gov. Jared Polis announced Friday.

“Coloradans hit by the Aspen Acres and Gold Mountain fires have shown incredible strength, but recovering from big disasters requires federal help,” Polis said in a statement. “Removing debris from homes and buildings destroyed is the most important step to begin rebuilding, and now that work can occur promptly and at no cost to homeowners, just as it did after the Marshall Fire.”

Dolores County in western Colorado is included in the disaster declaration because it was affected by the , which burned nearly 65,000 acres and damaged public power infrastructure there, Eric Maruyama, a Polis spokesman, said. The Ferris fire is not named explicitly in the declaration.

Polis made the formal request for federal aid to the White House on Aug. 23, after state and local officials worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to document and validate eligible damage. The state’s requests for two other types of disaster assistance are still under review.

“Our work is not finished. Families lost homes and livelihoods in these fires, and individual assistance and hazard mitigation funding remain under review,” U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd said in a statement. “I will continue working with the administration and our state and local partners to get those requests across the finish line and make sure western and southern Colorado have the resources they need to recover.”

In a break from previous disasters, the approved support wasn’t certain. Trump had previously denied disaster aid for 2025’s Elk and Lee fires and flooding in western Colorado later that year. The administration has come under repeated criticism for appearing to play politics with disaster relief money, with Trump often of candidates and denying claims to Democratic-led states than Republican ones.

In a statement, Sen. Michael Bennet welcomed the relief — but noted that more can be done for Coloradans recovering from the disasters.

“Following an outpouring of local support for disaster relief, I am glad to see the approval of the State’s request for a major disaster declaration and public assistance,” Bennet said in the statement.

He added: “The President must now approve the Governor’s request for individual assistance and hazard mitigation funding as well as the overdue federal assistance for the Lee and Elk Fires and extreme flooding in Southwest Colorado that occurred last year.”

The Aspen Acres fire has burned more than 100,000 acres, or roughly 159 square miles, mostly in southwest Pueblo County. It is the seventh-largest wildfire in Colorado history. The Gold Mountain fire has burned nearly 40,000 acres, or 62 square miles, mostly in Ouray County.

, operator of the Ikon Pass, has signed a 12-year lease for 65,000 square feet of space in the high-profile corner building at 101 W. Colfax Ave.

The agreement, made public Thursday, ends weeks of speculation about whether the ski giant would leave Colorado and where it might relocate within Denver if it stayed.

The company plans to spend the next year renovating the space with help of $11 million in state and city incentives, which include a mix of loans, grants and tax credits.

“Ultimately, after considering multiple options in and out of the state and the city, we decided that the Denver Post building specifically was where we wanted to be for the future of Alterra,” said Eric Resnick, chairman of Alterra and CEO of KSL Capital Partners, the private ski company’s owner.

Resnick said he didn’t fully appreciate the intensity of the efforts to revive Upper Downtown, and that KSL Capital wants to be part of those.

Seeing construction equipment at work in Civic Center Park, visible from the balconies of the Denver Post building, helped seal the deal.

A refreshed park is scheduled to reopen about the same time that Alterra moves into its new headquarters.

“This is not us hoping for that to happen in the future. It is seeing that reality coming to life and wanting to be part of it,” he said.

Alterra, which employs up to 25,000 workers at peak winter capacity, expects to eventually employ 400 at its new headquarters, up from 275 at its current space at Zeppelin Station in the RiNo neighborhood.

As the manager of the Denver-owned Winter Park Resort, Alterra, and before it Intrawest, has long had a close working relationship with the city.

That relationship will gain a new dimension as landlord-tenant, pending Denver City Council approval of the lease agreement at its next meeting on Sept. 14.

“We really wanted to have an anchor tenant that would help define the identity of Upper Downtown, and we really want to build that identity around this partner,” said Denver Mayor Mike Johnston.

What Alterra brings is an outdoor industry-focused magnet to Upper Downtown, he said. For a part of Denver that has seen more businesses flee than arrive since the pandemic, it represents a huge win.

The city’s larger vision, supported by the state, is to create a hub where other outdoor recreation businesses, from makers of snow gear to service providers, can set up a base camp and interact with each other.

“We approved $1 million in grants to recruit individual companies to the outdoor recreation hub that are part of this ecosystem,” said Gov. Jared Polis. “Alterra is very much the core anchor of that.”

Alterra won’t manage the hub, but city and state officials hope its presence will attract vendors and other outdoor recreation companies to the building and surrounding area.

Roughly half of the Denver Post building remains vacant, which represents about 150,000 square feet of available space.

After Alterra leases its share, another 85,000 square feet might be available for other outdoor recreation businesses, depending on the city’s own office space needs.

In 2020, the city thought it would need the building for new courtrooms and district attorney offices. In early 2024, it bought the building for $88.5 million, overcoming opposition from some members of City Council.

In June, Denver, in a $13.5 million settlement, took over the master lease from the owner of The Denver Post, which had defaulted on monthly lease payments of $650,000 in August.

Controlling the master lease opened a path for Denver to strike the current deal with Alterra.

Johnston said the demand for more judicial space didn’t pan out as projected. Plans to build new courts, which would have been an expensive undertaking in a city facing budget shortfalls, are off the table.

Plus, if more office space is ever needed, Upper Downtown has plenty of it available.

Of Denver’s 102 largest office towers, the median year of construction is 1980. Built in 2006, the Denver Post building is one of the newest available in that part of Downtown.

And it has something rare in Denver, something that might appeal to outdoor enthusiasts: Balconies that allow tenants to soak up the sunshine and fresh air.

Johnston described the Alterra headquarters and outdoor recreation hub as the eastern capstone on a string of projects that include the repurposing of the Independence Plaza as an education hub and the purchase and eventual revitalization of the Denver Pavilions, a large outdoor retail complex along 16th Street.

“As we’ve talked through each of those neighborhoods throughout 16th Street, this has really been the last one that was the most important for us to get right,” Johnston said.

And the benefits go beyond a single building. Alterra helped make skiing possible on Ruby Hill in southwest Denver; he sees the company and other outdoor recreation tenants turning Civic Center into a hub of wintertime activities.

A retention effort

During the summer, state and local economic development officials scrambled to put together an incentive package robust enough to keep Alterra from moving to Utah, the state’s chief rival in outdoor recreation.

Utah was the first state to create an Office of Outdoor Recreation in 2013, but Colorado was close behind in 2015 with its Outdoor Recreation Industry Office.

In 2017, Denver, with state help, lured the largest snow sports trade show away from Salt Lake City, only to lose it again in 2022.

But losing Alterra would have been a huge black eye for a state that prides itself on being a global hub for the ski industry.

Alterra is North America’s second-largest ski resort operator with 18 destination resorts available under the Ikon Pass, including Arapahoe Basin and the Steamboat Ski Resort.

Colorado is also home to Broomfield-based Vail Resorts, the world’s largest ski company with more than 40 resorts offered via the Epic Pass.

Yet, Alterra’s relocation incentives raise concerns about public interventions in the private market.

Apart from Cherry Creek and Douglas County, most of the region’s office market has a long way to go to recover pre-pandemic vacancy rates.

Upper Downtown may have gained a signature tenant, but Zeppelin Station and the RiNo neighborhood lost one.

“From a public-private sector standpoint, it is a very gray area,” said Bart Allen, a director at Benchmark Commercial Solutions in Denver.

Further complicating matters, Denver will benefit financially to the degree it can fill up a building it owns. It also has financial tools available that struggling private building owners lack in the current environment.

Resnick said the required improvements will take about a year to complete. The company will exercise its option to terminate its lease at Zeppelin Station, up for renewal in 2029, early.

Johnston emphasized that the DDA incentives were conditioned on Alterra moving into a building in Upper Downtown, not into a building the city owned.

The company researched four locations in the area, and it wasn’t a given that 101 W. Colfax would win out in the end.

The city also tried to structure a deal comparable to what a private landlord would have offered, but its financial limitations required going with a different structure.

Normally, landlords fund tenant improvements up front and recover the investment over time via a higher lease rate. But the city didn’t have the money to go that route.

“We didn’t have the capacity to write Alterra a check, so we agreed on a sort of loan forgiveness or a rent‑forgiveness structure to be able to cover some of those tenant improvements,” Johnston said.

A portion of the improvements will be funded through a $7 million loan at 2% interest that the Downtown Denver Development Authority agreed to provide Alterra in July.

That money will become available for other Downtown projects as it is paid back. But Alterra will spend out of pocket for some of the improvements. The city is making up for that by offering a lower lease rate.

Developer Asher Luzzatto, who picked up four distressed office towers at a steep discount and has been approved for a DDDA loan to help convert two of them, would have liked to have landed Alterra as a tenant.

But he is glad the company is coming to Upper Downtown and sees its decision as a rising tide that will lift all boats.

“We need the market to trust that Denver is open for business,” he said. “You can’t do this for every company, but you can do it for some companies that are really reflective of Denver‘s culture and community.”

Alterra fits the bill, he said.

Latino voters in the state have consistently said they feel the country is going in the wrong direction, and they reiterated that dissatisfaction in a poll released Tuesday by the Colorado Latino Policy Agenda. Sixty-six percent of respondents said they felt the country was on the wrong track as their frustrations about the cost of living — which ranked higher than any other issue, including immigration — had gone unaddressed and, for many, had worsened.

Against that national critique, the annual poll has repeatedly found that Latino voters still hold a positive view of their own state. But that grace appears to have been exhausted: Forty-six percent of respondents this year said the state was moving in the wrong direction, against 40% who said the opposite.

That’s a stunning 26-percentage-point swing from the same poll last year. It’s also the first time in the poll’s six-year history that it has found an overall disapproval for Colorado’s direction among Latino voters.

“The main thing is the economy,” said Gabriel Sanchez, the pollster for BSP Research who conducted the survey. “Poll after poll, Latinos are telling us loudly: ‘Address the economy. We can’t afford housing. We can’t afford groceries. We can’t afford gas.’

“We’ve seen consistently in the poll that anger and frustration was largely at the federal government. Now, what we’re seeing is that frustration pointing toward government, period. And that’s because people are saying, ‘Look, every year things are getting worse. Somebody fix it.’ ”

The poll was conducted between July 1 and Aug. 11 in partnership with the advocacy groups Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, or COLOR, and Voces Unidas. It included 1,606 registered Latino voters and has a margin of error of 2.4 percentage points.

The respondents were also critical of who influences their government, saying that wealthy donors, corporate business groups, political consultants and outside PACs, and oil and gas companies wielded too much influence in the state. Eighty-one percent said they were concerned that campaign contributions from wealthy outside groups limited policies that could address the affordability crisis.

Asked to rank what federal and state policymakers should focus on, the top responses included the cost of living and healthcare, increasing wages, and building more affordable and attainable housing. Forty-three percent of respondents said their financial situation had worsened in the past year, compared to 22% who said their situation had improved.

More than half of voters who said their situation has worsened blamed Trump. (Ten percent also blamed billionaires and corporations, the second-highest response.)

Latino voters’ dissatisfaction with Colorado’s direction did not extend to the Democratic officials leading its government. U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, Gov. Jared Polis, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Attorney General Phil Weiser all had double-digit net approval ratings, with positive appraisals exceeding negative ones significantly.

Respondents also approved of Republican U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Jeff Hurd and their Democratic colleagues, U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette, Brittany Pettersen, Jason Crow and Joe Neguse.

Freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, whose 8th Congressional District seat is among the most hotly contested in the country this fall, was less appreciated. Only 34% of voting Latinos in his district regarded him favorably, while 42% viewed him unfavorably. Respondents in CD8 disapproved of congressional Republicans by 22 percentage points, compared to views of congressional Democrats that were net-favorable by 6 points.

That’s notable given that Latinos make up more than 38% of the CD8 electorate, .

What’s more, 61% of voters in the district disapproved of Trump. Of those who said the country was going in the wrong direction or their financial situation had worsened, a majority of Latino CD8 voters blamed Trump more than anyone else for those problems.

But Latino voters in the district also had the lowest overall opinion of the direction of the state. With an unpopular president in a blue state, Evans has focused his campaign on opposing Democrats at home. But while they’re unhappy with the state, CD8 Latino voters simultaneously have strongly favorable views of Polis and Colorado state lawmakers.

While those concerns may spell trouble for Evans, the poll’s top-line takeaway about affordability is a call to action for government officials across the political spectrum, said Alex SĂĄnchez, the president and CEO of Voces Unidas.

“The problem is the lack of action by those in power who can do something about it,” he said. “For the first time since we began this project, more Latinos believe Colorado is moving in the wrong direction than the right direction. That is concerning. State leaders should take that seriously.”

SĂĄnchez said the affordability concerns were “being made worse by what’s happening in our streets, in our communities.” The survey found that 40% of respondents statewide knew someone who had been deported as Trump has pushed to increase immigration arrests and deportations.

To that end, significant majorities of the poll’s respondents opposed letting immigration agents arrest people directly from jails. They backed efforts to allow Coloradans to sue federal officials and opposed allowing the governor to “voluntarily” share immigrants’ information with the federal government, a nod to Polis’ repeated attempts to cooperate with ICE subpoenas.

But the respondents were not entirely progressive. Majorities also supported conservative-backed ballot measures related to penalties for fentanyl possession; trans athletes competing in high school and college sports; and gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

Members of Congress, local leaders and statewide officials call the support critical for rebuilding after a pair of devastating fires tore through Colorado, with flooding not far behind the blazes. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has rallied support from across political lines to underscore the need for the declaration publicly, and U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican, is organizing a tour with other western lawmakers so he can recruit them to a lobbying effort aimed at winning Trump’s approval.

Hanging over the waiting period is that the Trump administration, breaking with recent history, has rejected similar aid requests from Colorado and other states that voted against his return to the White House.

Both the Aspen Acres and Gold Mountain wildfires burned through Hurd’s Western Slope district, which also covers much of southern Colorado. He said it was still too soon to read anything into the still-unanswered federal aid request — even as he keeps in mind that the administration denied the similar request for the 2025 Elk and Lee fires, also in Hurd’s district, including appeals earlier this year.

To win support for the disaster declaration, he said he was working through “as many channels as we can — both officially, through the press, and through sources the president and his team would see, but also behind the scenes.”

He lauded the bipartisan effort behind the public pressure campaign — and also highlighted that Pueblo County, which bore the brunt of the Aspen Acres fire, voted for Trump in 2024.

“This is a terrible disaster in a crucial part of the state,” Hurd said. “Families have been impacted by not only the wildfire, but the flooding. The scope and nature of this disaster is almost unprecedented in this part of the state, in this part of the country. I will say also, these are communities that are largely rural and support the president.”

This summer, the has burned more than 100,000 acres, or roughly 159 square miles, mostly in southwest Pueblo County. It is the seventh-largest wildfire in Colorado history. The has burned nearly 40,000 acres, or 62 square miles, mostly in Ouray County. Both are largely contained, but still active in a season that has seen many other fires in the state.

The fires have destroyed more than 800 structures and 324 homes, according to signed by all of Colorado’s members of Congress and both senators.

Polis declared each fire a disaster at the end of June, and since then the state has opened up nearly $266 million to help with fire suppression, recovery and response, according to his office.

State ‘has worked closely with FEMA,’ Polis says

Polis made the formal request for federal aid to the White House on Aug. 23, after state and local officials worked with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to document and validate eligible damage.

The next day, Polis’ office publicized quotes from nearly two dozen local leaders and homeowners calling on the White House to approve the declaration. 

“The State of Colorado has worked closely with FEMA to put this request together and ensure we are doing all we can to support the communities impacted,” Polis said in a statement as the request neared the one-week mark. “I’m grateful to Colorado’s entire congressional delegation for coming together in bipartisan support of our request. These rural communities have been through an incredibly difficult summer and I urge the President to approve Colorado’s request so that survivors can rebuild, repair, and recover from these catastrophic events.”

As of Monday afternoon, the White House still had not approved the declaration.

In an unattributed statement, a White House spokesperson said Trump responds to each request “with great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”

That is the exact language the White House used when offering a statement on why it denied support for the Elk and Lee fires.

“The Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with State and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged,” the statement continued.

The disaster declaration would help the local governments in the affected areas rebuild infrastructure, including roads, water treatment plants and parks that were damaged or destroyed by the wildfires. Rural electric cooperatives would get help to rebuild destroyed power lines and transmission stations.

A declaration would also help homeowners rebuild property that was uninsured, either because insurers wouldn’t cover them or because they didn’t need coverage — as was the case with homes that weren’t in flood zones until the blazes remade local topography.

In recent months, Trump has increasingly politicized disaster relief. In July, he announced nearly $1 billion in aid to red states while praising candidates he backed in elections set at the same time, . Politico that Trump overrode regional approval to deny aid to New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. 

The administration has also admitted in court documents to canceling grant funding for blue states and not “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor,” . Colorado was among those states.

The Times that data showed a sharp spike in disaster funding denials for Democratic states in Trump’s current term compared to presidents of both parties going back to the start of the century — including Trump’s first term. The Times’ analysis showed Trump had denied 43% of disaster relief requests made by Democratic states in his second term, compared to 19% of requests made by Republican states.

Colorado was also targeted by administration officials in December as the president lashed out at Polis for the ongoing imprisonment of Tina Peters, the disgraced election official who was sentenced for election-related crimes. Polis later commuted her sentence.

While the White House has denied playing politics with disaster relief, it¶¶Òőap a pattern officials — Republican and Democrat — have invoked.

“Politics should never determine who rebuilds after a natural disaster,” U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said in a statement. “Americans count on their government to support their communities after disaster strikes. This administration’s shameful trend of denying disaster aid to Colorado, and other states the president wants to punish, shatters Americans’ trust in their government.

“We won’t stop fighting for Colorado communities and making sure politics stays out of disaster recovery.”

Republicans join push, hoping to add leverage

State Rep. Larry Don Suckla, a Cortez Republican whose district includes the Gold Mountain fire burn area, said he watched the smoke rise from his backyard.

Places like Lake City, in Hinsdale County, were particularly devastated, both from the fire itself and from a halt in the summer tourism the area relies on, he said. He signed on to Polis’ letter, and, in an interview, emphasized that rural Colorado — the part of the state that grows food and harvests timber — would benefit from the disaster declaration. 

“Maybe my party affiliation, and the party affiliation of (Rep. Stephanie Luck, a Republican whose district includes the Aspen Acres fire), will make a difference. I don’t know,” Suckla said. He added that he owed it to his constituents to use whatever leverage he could to secure federal help.

State Sen. Cleave Simpson, an Alamosa Republican and leader of his caucus, said he considered the prior denials in his decision to join Polis’ public push.

He urged officials to “please not make this political theater, or comedy, and recognize the impacts these disasters have had on people’s livelihoods.”

He also warns of “a sense of frustration and abandonment” if the declaration isn’t approved. 

“Folks in general are pretty resilient, and we’ll figure out a way to move forward,” Simpson said. “It might take longer, and more energy and more resources, and it takes away from other efforts. Something will suffer along the way, I suppose. But I’m sure it would be a sense of defeatism if the declaration isn’t made and declared, and support doesn’t follow.”

Meanwhile, people in the Aspen Acres and Gold Mountain burn areas will be left dealing with the aftermath. 

Ouray County Commissioner Michelle Nauer evacuated when the fire neared her neighborhood, and she had to listen as a nearby creek broke its banks and overflowed into neighbors’ homes in the following days — neighbors who didn’t live in a flood zone, and so they hadn’t needed to buy insurance to protect against that type of calamity. Flooding often acts as a double whammy following fires, after the blazes scour the earth of vegetation that has kept banks in place.

Her friends, neighbors and constituents lost homes and businesses. Nauer, who is unaffiliated with a party, says she’s “not putting a whole lot of hope” into the disaster declaration request, given recent history.

But that doesn’t mean her community doesn’t need it.

“The emotional and financial devastation to the community, it has been horrific to us. I don’t know how else to describe it,” Nauer said. “I don’t know what else I would say (to people deciding on disaster relief). Please? Of course, please.”

Canada is Colorado’s largest trading partner, selling $5.3 billion in imports to the state and buying $1.6 billion in exports in 2025.

That combined $6.9 billion in trade last year with Canada dwarfed the $2.7 billion in combined trade from the state’s next largest trading partner — Mexico, according to trade statistics provided by the World Trade Center Denver from the WISERTrade database.

“Canada, Mexico and the U.S. have so integrated their economies that this really disrupts that,” Sandi Moilanen, vice president of operations with the WTC Denver, said regarding the trade conflict.

After trade discussions, which appeared close to wrapping up, broke down late Friday, the U.S. placed new and higher tariffs on more than 550 Canadian product categories representing $20 billion in imported goods.

The administration turned to section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, which allows a U.S. president to impose tariffs of up to 50% on imports from any foreign country deemed to be “discriminating” against U.S. commerce or products.

Those rarely used duties supersede exemptions given under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which was implemented in 2020 during the first Trump administration.

That treaty required a mandatory review in July 2026, and the U.S. declined to renew the agreement in its current form, which set off the current round of negotiations.

Citing long-standing trade imbalances, the U.S. wants Canada to dismantle its supply management system for dairy and provincial alcohol distribution barriers and to streamline regulations.

Canada wanted tariff relief for medium- and heavy-duty pickup trucks, which it argued had become too costly with added tariffs. But the U.S. rejected any adjustments beyond light-duty passenger vehicles.

U.S. officials also expressed frustration that Canada has strengthened trade ties with Europe and China. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney defended Ottawa’s foreign policy, stating Canada was an independent nation entitled to strike international trade deals as it saw fit.

When Canada walked out of talks late Friday, claiming the U.S. was asking too much and giving too little in return, it was hit with 50% tariffs effective midnight Saturday.

On Tuesday, Canada countered with a list of tariffs on more than 700 U.S. product categories effective Sept. 8.

They include 50% tariffs on U.S. steel, aluminum, clothing, apparel and furniture, as well as 25% tariffs on U.S. appliances, dairy products, seafood and steel and aluminum derivative products. Other categories face a 15% tariff.

Lacking a port, Colorado’s trade strategy emphasizes serving as a key U.S. link on a trade corridor stretching from Canada to Mexico, and it has built close ties in both countries.

Moilanen said the WTC Denver, which supports global trade, is urging Colorado companies doing business in Canada to keep their partnerships alive.

“We have had business relationships with Canada for years and years. Don’t ignore those because of changing U.S. policies. You don’t know what will happen in the future,” she said.

Gov. Jared Polis also made a statement of support for maintaining .

“Canada is an important trading partner for Colorado businesses, and we will do all we can to grow a strong, predictable trade relationship with our neighbors to the north. A strong partnership benefits both Colorado and Canada,” Polis said.

His post was met with a barrage of negative comments from supporters of taking a tough stance against Canada.

About $230 million of Canadian imports to Colorado, or roughly 4.3% of the total, face added tariffs of up to 50% in the latest round, according to an analysis by the WTC Denver.

Canadian trade is a tiny sliver of Colorado GDP, around 1.2%, and the share of total exports facing tariffs is small. But many of the targeted products are ones that U.S. consumers rely on, and higher tariffs could compound local inflation, which was running at 3.9% in Denver in July.

Canada is the largest foreign supplier of toilet paper to the U.S., and it also supplies much of the softwood pulp that domestic makers like Procter & Gamble use.

Although analysts don’t envision a pandemic-like supply chain collapse, consumers could strain the existing inventory if they stock up in an attempt to lock in lower prices.

That includes other paper products like facial tissue and paper towels. One place to watch if that is happening would be the shelves of bulk retailers like Costco and Sam’s Club.

Maple syrup in the morning will cost more, and so will a shot of Canadian whiskey in the evening. Expect new home construction and existing home renovation costs to rise as lumber and building supplies become more expensive.

Prices for winter apparel and hockey gear are already going up, impacting youth sports leagues. And gardeners could face higher seed and bulb prices come spring.

Starting next year, tariffs on new autos assembled in Canada and sold in the U.S. could shoot up to 50% from current levels of 25%. One failed goal of the talks was to get the rate down to 15%.

Between 6% and 9% of vehicles sold in the U.S. are made in Canada.

Among the models most at risk of a price spike next year are the Toyota RAV4, the Honda CR-V, the Honda Civic, the Dodge Charger Daytona, the Chrysler Pacifica and Voyager, the Chevrolet Silverado and the GMC Sierra.

Colorado residents, however, have dodged what would have likely proven the greatest pain point — petroleum products, which are excluded from the current round of trade talks.

Petroleum products account for about 63% of the dollar value of imports from Canada to Colorado, and much of that represents bitumen extracted from oil sands in Alberta, which is used as feedstock at the Suncor refinery in Commerce City.

Colorado consumers are already coping with gasoline prices above the national average, $4.32 per gallon vs. $4.10 per gallon nationally, according to the AAA.

A 50% tariff on Canadian oil would have likely widened that gap even more.

On the flip side, Colorado exporters of industrial machinery, chemicals, transportation equipment and auto parts are vulnerable to higher Canadian tariffs.

Some bigger names in those areas include the Gates Corp., Woodward Inc., Hexcel Corp., Boulder Scientific, Ball Aerospace and Sierra Nevada.

A few companies find themselves caught squarely in the middle of the trade fight with nowhere to hide, chief among them the Molson Coors Beverage Co.

The company, based in both Montreal and Chicago, widely distributes its Canadian brands, like Molson, in the U.S. and does the same in Canada for its American brands, like Coors.

If a 50% tariff on both sides of the border wasn’t bad enough, heavier tariffs on raw aluminum from Canada will drive up the cost of cans, further eroding already-shrinking profit margins.

Beer consumption was already on a downward path, and higher prices could accelerate that slippage. Lower sales could mean lower production at the Coors Brewing plant in Golden, which is the largest in the company’s network.

Molson Coors shares, which trade under the ticker TAP, are down nearly 10% so far this year and 16% over the past year.

The pardons cover a range of convictions across the state, including theft, drug possession and fraud. Twenty-eight of those people pleaded guilty and one was convicted, according to pardon letters published by the governor’s office.

“Of the hundreds of applications for pardons my office receives, yours is one of the few I am granting,” Polis wrote in letters to the people he pardoned.

“I am doing so because you have demonstrated your commitment to moving past your conviction and starting anew, while taking with you lessons you have learned throughout your life,” he continued.

Polis highlighted their successes after conviction, including raising children and grandchildren, pursuing higher education, serving in the military and excelling in their careers.

The governor is the only person who can grant clemency for state crimes under the Colorado Constitution, which can mean a commutation — a reduced criminal sentence — or a pardon, which is full forgiveness of a crime.

Polis made national headlines earlier this year when he granted clemency and freed former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was serving a nine-year sentence. The move sparked significant backlash from other elected officials and the Colorado Democratic Party.

Two members of the clemency board spoke out against the decision, and the governor fired them.

To date, Polis has granted 165 individual pardons and 35 commutations, along with 4,083 blanket pardons for marijuana possession and four pardons for psilocybin or psilocin possession, spokesperson Eric Maruyama said.

The governor’s previous clemency actions included commuting the sentences for two men serving life in prison for murder and reducing the 110-year sentence for a truck driver convicted in a Lakewood crash that killed four people.

People pardoned by Gov. Jared Polis on Aug. 26, 2026:

• Xochilt Alamillo
• Harmony Baddeley-Spurlock
• Idania Beltran
• Derek Bilbrey
• Darren Black
• James Bruntz, Jr.
• Sarah Bunting
• Seidilyn Burgos
• Jonathan Carey
• Hemmingway Dai
• Jeremy Dieckhoff
• Scott Dillon
• Steve Estwick, Sr.
• Sabrina Flanagan
• Ernest Flowers
• Joshua Hayden
• Max Hernandez
• Steven Holzwarth
• Aidan Kehoe
• Robert Kile
• Joseph Martinez
• Ian McGehee
• Chad Meiers
• Haven Rohnert
• Melanie Roth
• Estela Saenz
• Joshua Salazar
• Justin Sandefur
• Travis Weickum

Updated 4:45 p.m. Aug. 26, 2026: This story has been updated to report that most of the pardoned individuals pleaded guilty to crimes, but one was convicted. 

Colorado has been no exception. The administration launched probes targeting diversity, equity and inclusion at colleges and universities, all-gender bathrooms and transgender athletes at K-12 schools, and the conditions inside the state’s adult and youth prisons.

These announcements rattled local institutions and their leaders, and prompted voluminous news coverage.

But what happened after the dust settled?

The Denver Post took a closer look at four federal investigations in Colorado to see what, if anything, the Trump administration has done to follow up on its public pronouncements.

The newspaper found, in one case, federal investigators never acted on their initial demands. In another, the government sought and received thousands of pages of documents and conducted site visits in the state.

Colorado institutions have taken wildly different tacks in response to these probes. Denver Public Schools publicly defied the administration’s demands — and was met by radio silence. Jeffco Public Schools took preemptive legal action against the Trump administration. And the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus chose to quietly and quickly resolve the government’s allegations.

Experts say this is all part of the Trump administration’s plan — to flood the media with stories about its aggressive actions, to scare public bodies into acquiescing and to target political enemies.

“In a lot of these instances, it feels like fishing,” said Beau C. Tremitiere, counsel and deputy impact director with , a nonpartisan, anti-authoritarian organization. “They often try the bare minimum to intimidate and coerce folks to get them to adopt the administration’s preferred policies without undergoing a serious, rigorous investigation.”

Two districts, two different tacks

Just eight days after Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025, the announced it had opened an investigation into Denver Public Schools for “discriminating against its female students” by creating an all-gender bathroom at East High School.

“Let me be clear: It is a new day in America, and under President Trump, (the Office for Civil Rights) will not tolerate discrimination of any kind,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement that day.

Seven months later, the government found DPS violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and gave the district 10 days to agree to a proposed resolution — which included converting all-gender restrooms back to single-sex facilities — or “risk imminent enforcement action.”

Superintendent Alex Marrero said the federal agency never visited the bathroom at East High, didn’t interview any witnesses and declined DPS requests for conversation and mediation.

DPS officials ultimately defied the federal order.

Then, nothing.

No “imminent enforcement action.” No further ultimatums. No communication whatsoever.

DPS officials, in response to a records request from The Post this summer, said the school district had no correspondence between its leadership and the Office for Civil Rights since the announced investigation.

Scott Pribble, a DPS spokesperson, said Thursday that they’ve received no word from the federal government on this matter.

The Trump administration last month announced it had launched a second investigation into the school district, this time over reports that a teacher allegedly made female students kiss each other in class.

The Education Department told The Post it does not comment on ongoing investigations.

Just one county over, however, Jeffco Public Schools took a very different strategy.

In June 2025, the Trump administration announced another Title IX investigation, this time into Jeffco’s policy on sleeping arrangements for transgender students on overnight school trips. A family had sued the district in 2024, alleging their daughter was assigned to share a bed with a transgender girl on a school trip.

Ten months later, the Education Department found Jeffco discriminated against girls by allowing transgender students to compete in female sports and access female facilities. Just as it had with DPS, the government gave Jeffco 10 days to agree to a resolution or risk “imminent enforcement action,” which could include pulling more than $50 million in federal funding.

Jeffco, in July, elected to sue the Trump administration to prevent any funding cuts. District officials said the Office of Civil Rights never interviewed staff or students, and did not send any investigators to visit Colorado.

The feds’ assertions that 60 male students were competing on girls’ sports teams were wildly inaccurate, Jeffco said. Any boys listed on rosters for girls’ teams serve as managers, trainers or mascots, district officials said.

“Jeffco did not receive any communication at all from OCR during the investigation,” the district¶¶Òőap attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

‘Quickly and voluntarily’

In contrast to these public fights, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs elected to resolve its dispute with the federal government quietly.

In March 2025, the Office for Civil Rights announced the campus was one of 50 universities under investigation for alleged racial discrimination. The inquiry focused on colleges’ partnerships with the , a nonprofit that helps students from underrepresented groups get degrees in business with the goal of diversifying the business world.

The Education Department requested a laundry list of documents from the Colorado school, including the names, races and ethnicities of university students selected for participation in the PhD Project, along with the names and titles of any school employees involved in decisions surrounding the organization, according to a government letter announcing the investigation.

UCCS, though, replied that its students never participated in any PhD Project conferences or other activities. The school doesn’t even confer Ph.D.s in business. The extent of the university’s engagement with the organization was posting 11 job openings on a job boards, the school said in an Oct. 2 letter.

Without sending much of the documentation requested by the government, UCCS proposed a resolution agreement. In it, the school agreed to discontinue any membership or partnership with the PhD Project and promised to review all associations with external organizations “to identify any … that restrict participation based on race” in violation of the Civil Rights Act, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by The Post through a records request.

UCCS said it “maintained a desire to resolve this matter quickly and voluntarily.”

In December, the school told the Education Department that it had reviewed its partnerships and determined that it had none that restrict membership based on race. Officials identified one organization, the , but said it would maintain its membership with the chamber due to its support of all businesses, not just Black-owned ones.

Two months later, the two sides reached a deal. University officials haven’t heard from the government since, said Michele Ames, a school spokesperson.

Site visits, documents and a freed clerk

Similarly, Colorado prison officials have taken a nonconfrontational approach with federal investigators.

In December, the Department of Justice announced an investigation into the state’s adult and youth correctional facilities. The government said the probe would examine whether Colorado prisons are violating the constitutional rights of adult inmates and youth detainees through excessive force, inadequate medical care and nutrition, and policies surrounding the housing of transgender offenders.

Industry watchers immediately questioned the validity of the investigation, noting it came soon after Trump had lambasted the state for continuing to imprison Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk convicted of election-related crimes.

Emails disclosed in a recent court case also showed that the Trump administration, a week after announcing the Colorado investigation, gathered agency leaders to brainstorm how to punish the state amid the Peters furor. The federal government ultimately canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and moved to shutter a renowned science lab in Boulder.

Yet despite Gov. Jared Polis reducing Peters’ sentence in May and releasing her from prison early, the Justice Department has continued its investigation, according to records obtained by The Post.

The state has produced nearly 20,000 documents in response to investigators’ requests, including policies and procedures, contracts, staffing plans, census reports, medical policies and reportable incidents, according to an index of records reviewed by The Post.

Last month, a contingent from the Justice Department visited the and in northeast Denver, records show. Typical visits include meeting with key administrators before doing a walk-through of the facilities, where officials talk to incarcerated individuals and staff, federal investigators told the state’s lawyers in an email. DOJ employees also said they planned to take photos of cells, storage spaces, locks and fire alarms.

Emails show the two sides also discussed plans for federal officials to return to Colorado this fall to tour a youth detention campus.

Advocates and families, though, say they haven’t heard a peep from the Justice Department.

The government’s initial letter outlining its investigation mentioned allegations of the state failing to provide adequate nutrition to inmates. The Post in November reported that young people held at the Youthful Offender System prison in Pueblo were losing extreme amounts of weight due to a lack of food.

But parents whose kids are incarcerated at the Youth Offender System prison say they have contacted the DOJ and heard nothing back. Meanwhile, no one with the Colorado Youth Justice Collaborative, a 131-member group dedicated to reforming youth detention in the state, has been approached by federal investigators, according to Dana Walters Flores, one of its members.

“Are they just blowing hot air, or are they doing something?” said Erica Brown, the head of a parent group for Youth Offender System family members.

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

‘The damage has been done’

Colorado has been targeted by the Trump administration “through a coordinated campaign of federal investigations, funding cuts and other punitive actions,” said Chioma Chukwu, executive director of the nonpartisan watchdog .

“The point isn’t to uncover wrongdoing or reach well-supported conclusions,” she said. “It¶¶Òőap to generate damaging headlines, threaten federal funding and pressure public institutions to abandon lawful policies and conform to the administration’s ideological agenda. The administration doesn’t care whether the public believes it has the evidence or capacity to pursue every investigation. By the time those questions are asked, the damage has been done.”

This administration’s tactics are unprecedented and specifically designed to target political enemies and impose a rigid ideology over who they believe is a real citizen in this country, said Tremitiere, of Protect Democracy.

It’s important, he said, for targeted entities and individuals to stand up to the “unlawful coercion” from the federal government. Tremitiere likened the current environment to a bully at school trying to take your lunch money: It’s more effective to stand up to the bully, stare them down and make clear that you won’t be a pushover, he said.

And yet, even if the local government or university has the law on their side, these investigations drain immense time and resources, Tremitiere said. There’s also the opportunity cost of the federal government not pursuing legitimate investigations to protect the civil rights of its citizens.

“It means there is real law-breaking going uninvestigated,” he said, “because the limited capacity of the administration is going toward political projects instead of protecting the public and enforcing the laws on the books.”

The Thursday decision from U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico defangs the most immediate part of , which Democratic lawmakers passed earlier this year.

Siding in large part with a request from Geo Group, the private company that runs the Aurora detention center, Domenico found that HB 1276’s provisions requiring unannounced inspections at least once every three months were preempted by federal law and Geo’s existing contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

He wrote that the newly required inspections — and a companion provision that directed Geo to pay for them — “are currently in effect, imposing actual burdens on Geo of more frequent and costly inspections.” He said the new rules were likely unconstitutional.

Domenico noted that Geo’s contract with ICE is due to expire Oct. 15. He set his injunction to end on that date because the “provisions of any new contract that GEO (or another operator) obtains from the federal government may alter the analysis significantly, or make proceeding further with this case unnecessary at all.”

Aside from requiring more regular inspections, HB 1276 also empowers state health officials to impose other regulations on Geo, including requiring specific medical staffing and preventing Geo from blocking outside infectious disease inspections. Lawyers for the state have argued in court that those provisions aren’t in effect yet and that the state has no immediate plans to bring them into effect.

As a result, Domenico did not block them — though he suggested that “should enforcement of those provisions become imminent, this analysis might change.”

A spokesman for Geo did not immediately return a message seeking comment; the company recently announced plans to open another ICE-contracted detention center in Hudson, north of Denver.

Nayda Benitez, the organizing director for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, which worked on the law during the legislative session, said her group was concerned about what impact the ruling would have going forward.

“We maintain that we don’t necessarily think that pieces of this bill are unconstitutional,” she said. “For us, it¶¶Òőap just important that we hold Geo and really any private detention facility in Colorado to high standards, especially knowing what we’re hearing from our members and people on the inside at Geo.”

In a statement, Attorney General Phil Weiser called the ruling a “narrow, temporary injunction” and noted that Domenico did not undo other, pre-existing state laws. Domenico’s ruling did leave intact county officials’ ability to inspect Geo at their discretion, and he did not touch other provisions unrelated to facility inspections.

Still, Domenico’s opinion is a blow to the only part of Colorado Democrats’ immigration package to survive the 2026 legislative session. Lawmakers killed two other measures, and Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a third.

More fundamentally, the ruling lays bare the core challenge for legislators hoping to put state-level constraints on the Trump administration’s immigration efforts. Immigration enforcement is generally a federal duty, and its operation is carried out chiefly by either federal agents or federal contractors, like Geo — whicih are often outside the scope of state officials’ regulatory authority

The opinion also comes amid intense scrutiny over the conditions inside the Aurora facility: On Wednesday, Weiser’s office sued Geo for blocking state health inspectors from carrying out a tuberculosis investigation tied to the detention center.

Bennet made the request in a Thursday morning letter to Sen. John Thune, the Republican majority leader, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader. It follows for the inspectors general of several federal agencies to investigate whether federal resources were used to target the state.

The request comes a week after attorneys for the state of Colorado disclosed a December email from a White House aide summoning officials from several agencies to discuss “immediate actions that your department or agency can take with respect to Colorado.” The email was then followed by funding cuts, the proposed closure of Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research and the denial of disaster assistance funds.

Echoing allegations raised by attorneys for the state, who called the email a “smoking gun,” Bennet in his letter to Senate leadership accused the Trump administration of targeting the state because of Tina Peters’ then-continued incarceration. Attorneys for the state have also argued that Colorado had also drawn the president’s ire because of its mail-in balloting system and its laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In court filings, the administration has argued that it’s not unusual for the federal government to “make decisions based on political or geographic considerations.” The White House has denied that Colorado officials’ refusal to release or transfer Peters played a part in the email or subsequent administrative decisions.

An ally of President Donald Trump, Peters was serving a prison sentence for her role in giving an unauthorized person access to secure voting equipment in Mesa County. Her sentence was commuted by Gov. Jared Polis in May, and she was released June 1.

Bennet said that presidential administrations were entitled to advance their political priorities but that they couldn’t “dictate terms to states.” Three constitutional law professors told The Denver Post last week that the email — and the coordinated effort it appeared to reveal — was unprecedented and likely illegal. One also warned about a permanent rupture of trust between state and federal authorities, an argument that Bennet also stressed.

“Allowing this unconstitutional overreach to go unchallenged sets a dangerous precedent, and unsettles the relationship between states and the federal government,” Bennet wrote. “No state should ever be subject to punitive measures for decisions that simply happen to go against a sitting president’s desires — and no American should be denied relief from floods and wildfires, or see their opportunity for clean water ripped away, simply because they happen to live in a state at odds with a given administration.”

Emails sent to Thune and Schumer’s offices were not immediately returned Thursday morning.

The December email, first reported last week by The Post, was read aloud in federal court on Aug. 11, and a copy was released in federal filings Wednesday.

Under the subject line “brainstorm call,” the email was sent by a Trump assistant to 14 federal officials and White House aides. The recipients included the chiefs of staff for the departments of energy, education, transportation, interior and agriculture. A deputy secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development was also included, as was a White House lawyer and an associate director for the Office of Management and Budget.

Federal action against Colorado rolled out quickly after the brainstorm session. The next day, the Energy Department’s deputy general counsel summoned several people to a “portfolio review” meeting requested by the White House, according to additional records filed in federal court. Several emails withheld by the Justice Department, but described in a log turned over to the state, involved Energy Department staff discussing the portfolio review and “potential termination” of grants to Colorado in the days after the email.

Officials from within the U.S. Department of Agriculture swapped similar emails soon after the White House meeting. The log shows senior agency officials emailing each other about a new pilot program, which would have required Colorado to swiftly recertify Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program eligibility for 100,000 recipients. Some emails also included Emily Underwood, an assistant to Trump and the author of the initial “brainstorm” email.

Geo Group’s refusal to comply with the order’s deadline — confirmed Tuesday by a state spokeswoman — means the impasse may now only be resolved in a courtroom.

Urged by advocates to take firmer action to investigate the spread of tuberculosis, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued the order on Aug. 13 after Geo refused to comply with a June order from Adams County health officials. The state order gives the Colorado Attorney General’s Office authority to sue Geo to force it to comply with the tuberculosis investigation, which seeks details about the detainee diagnosed with TB and any other people who may have come into contact with them.

Hope Shuler, a spokeswoman for the health department, confirmed that Geo had not sent the required information to state officials.

“Public officials must be able to verify the facts, identify people who may have been exposed and ensure they receive appropriate follow-up care,” Shuler wrote in a statement. “GEO has a responsibility not only to the people in its facility, but also to its employees and surrounding community. Its continued refusal to cooperate significantly limits the investigation, but we remain determined to obtain the information needed to protect public health.”

It’s unclear what happens next or on what timeline: Shuler said the health department is “actively coordinating with Adams County, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and Denver Health TB Clinic on next steps, including legal remedies.”

A spokesman for Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is in California for a trial against the social media company Meta, said the office had no updates as of Tuesday afternoon.

In a statement Tuesday, Geo spokesman Christopher Ferreira did not respond when asked whether the company had complied with the order. He said that there are no active or suspected cases of tuberculosis at the facility.

“Over the past two months, GEO has engaged repeatedly with the Adams County Health Department and other Colorado officials and has provided information to the state as authorized by DHS,” he said, referring to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement. “DHS and (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) remain actively involved in disease-prevention and control measures at (the detention center).”

In an email last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement referred questions about the order to Geo, which the agency contracts to run the detention center.

One person tested positive for tuberculosis in June, health officials have previously said. That person has since been deported, and Adams County officials said the person was believed to have contracted the respiratory illness before entering the facility. Geo undertook its own investigation and has repeatedly said there are no additional active cases of TB within the 1,530-bed detention center.

But Geo and ICE have refused to provide additional information to state or county investigators or grant them access to the Aurora facility to confirm that report or conduct the health investigation that’s required by law. The county issued its own public health order in June, which was ignored.

The state health department then requested more information in mid-July and gave Geo a 48-hour deadline to respond. Geo ignored that request, too, and state health officials’ attempts to work with Geo — outside of another health order — were unsuccessful.

Adams County officials previously told reporters that Geo had stopped communicating with them in late June.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper visited the Aurora facility Monday and told reporters that Geo staff declined to discuss the tuberculosis situation on advice of their lawyers. He said they also would not indicate whether they intended to comply with the state health order.

“You cannot do an investigation like this in a vacuum,” Hickenlooper said from the sidewalk outside of the facility. “…I’m shocked. I’ve never in my life seen a time where a direct order from the public health authority or a direct order from the state office of public health is ignored.”

If Weiser’s office sues Geo to enforce the order, the ensuing litigation will likely become entangled with another lawsuit between the company and the state.

In June, after Gov. Jared Polis signed a law requiring more regular inspections of the facility, Geo sued, arguing in essence that only the federal government could regulate it. The first hearing in that case came late last month and had influenced officials’ willingness to take additional legal steps to force compliance with the tuberculosis investigation.

State officials in both Washington state and New Jersey have sued Geo after the company blocked health inspectors in those states from accessing its detention centers.

Last month, Geo announced that it had signed a $528.6 million contract with ICE to open a new detention center in Hudson, a small, rural community north of Denver.