At the top of his list of reasons for taking the legal action, Weiser said during an online news conference, was President Donald Trump publicly citing Colorado’s mail-in balloting system as a “big factor” in last month’s decision to authorize the relocation of the facility. It will move from Peterson Space Force Base to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama in coming years.

“We are filing this lawsuit today in federal District Court in Denver to challenge a decision to move Space Command as a form of punishment, because Colorado chooses to exercise its authority to have a mail-in voting system,” he said. “This action is unconstitutional because in our Constitution, the executive branch isn’t allowed to punish, retaliate or seek to coerce states who lawfully exercise powers that are reserved to them.”

Those powers held by Colorado, Weiser said, include the authority to “oversee the time, place and manner of elections.” In the lawsuit, he described Colorado’s election system, with its multiple ways for voters to cast their ballots, as the “gold standard” for access and enfranchisement.

Colorado voters by 5 percentage points in the 2016 election and by more than 10 percentage points in 2020 and 2024.

�հ��ܳ�����announced the relocation of Space Command from the White House on Sept. 2. As part of his remarks, he said: “The problem I have with Colorado … they do mail-in voting, they went to all-mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections. And we can’t have that when a state is for mail-in voting — that means they want dishonest elections, because that’s what that means.”

Within minutes of that announcement, Weiser said his office would file suit to attempt to block it.

The resulting lawsuit, which names Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink as defendants, says the president’s actions illegally encroach on states’ rights.

“The President����ap decision to punish Colorado based on Colorado’s lawful exercise of its sovereign authority to regulate elections, and his threats to impose further harmful executive action, violate the Tenth Amendment, the Elections Clause, state sovereignty and separation-of-powers principles,” the .

The suit also accuses the president of violating “statutory requirements mandating detailed processes and public disclosures through the submission of reports to Congress before taking action to relocate a major military headquarters.”

U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank, a Republican who represents Colorado Springs in Congress, showed no support for Weiser’s challenge on Wednesday. That’s despite having signed on to a statement last month — alongside the state’s entire congressional delegation — saying Trump’s decision “will directly harm our state and the nation.”

The lawmakers on Sept. 2 said Space Command was “already fully operational” at Peterson and that the president’s move “sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.”

On Wednesday, Crank accused Weiser of pursuing a “politically motivated and novel legal theory that is opposed by almost every leader in our community.”

“I remain focused on productive efforts on fighting for El Paso County and its future as a critical part of our national defense,” Crank said in the email statement.

In Alabama, that state’s attorney general, Steve Marshall, that he was ready to fight to keep Space Command in his state if Colorado challenged the president’s decision.

“Bring it on,” Marshall said. “We’re prepared to be able to defend (the move), and I think we’ll win very easily.”

Weiser, during his news conference, said he was taking action now in hopes that a judge would “put a pause” on the decision.

“Our objective here is to make sure that while this lawsuit is pending, no actions happen, and in many of the lawsuits that we filed, that is one of the forms of relief we’ve been able to obtain,” he said of the dozens of lawsuits his office has filed to challenge varying Trump actions.

Weiser, who is running as a Democratic candidate for Colorado governor next year, said the suit filed Wednesday was Colorado’s 41st against the Trump administration since the Republican president took office for a second term in January.

The permanent location of Space Command headquarters — which is responsible for the nation’s military operations in outer space — has been a political hot potato since the end of Trump’s first administration. His successor, Democrat Joe Biden, opted not to act on Trump’s initiation of a move to Huntsville, citing the potential disruptions to Space Command.

The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce estimates that Space Command supports nearly 1,400 direct jobs and has a $1 billion impact on the Colorado Springs economy. The state has a significant Space Force presence, hosting half the bases with its major operations, including Peterson as well as Schriever Space Force Base in the Colorado Springs area and Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora.

Space Command’s functions include conducting operations like enabling satellite-based navigation and troop communication and providing warning of missile launches.

Among General Manager Sam Avina’s regulars are members of the 1,400-person U.S. Space Command, who work just a few hundred yards away inside the secure perimeter of Peterson Space Force Base. Over the next few years, their visits to his diner will dwindle as President Donald Trump’s decision to move the command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama, takes shape.

But the loss of those customers won’t threaten the long-term viability of Sandy’s, which has been in operation on Space Village Way since the 1970s, Avina said.

“It’s an institution,” he said of his restaurant, as a small line formed at the cash register behind him during a recent lunch rush, “and the area is growing.”

Sandy’s story serves as a microcosm of how the broader Colorado Springs economy is expected to fare as the beginning of the end for U.S. Space Command in Colorado comes into view — the result of a fierce yearslong political battle between two presidential administrations over where the combatant command responsible for all U.S. military operations in space should permanently land.

While few in this city of half a million were happy with the president’s decision to relocate Space Command, there’s little sense among industry types and civic boosters that the move will be an economic deathblow to a city with five military installations, including the U.S. Air Force Academy, in a region served by more than employing more than 100,000 people.

According to the , El Paso County far outpaces every other Colorado county when it comes to defense contractor spending and defense personnel spending — at $2.9 billion and $3.3 billion in fiscal year 2023, respectively.

“It’s a huge sector of our economy in the state of Colorado and will continue to be,” said Johnna Reeder Kleymeyer, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber and Economic Development Corporation. “We’re disappointed (in the president’s decision) but now we have some certainty.”

Mark Stafford, owner and CEO of Delta Solutions & Strategies LLC, said Colorado Springs is resilient enough to weather the move economically but wonders what impact losing a marquee facility like U.S. Space Command, which delivers space capabilities to all branches of the military, could have on the city’s standing.

Delta has several contracts with Space Command providing defense and government support services.

“Prestige and perception will take a hit,” Stafford said.

Which is why Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade, along with economic development officials and county commissioners, are headed to Washington, D.C., this week to meet with members of the Pentagon and Congress to ensure the city continues to play a major role in what promises to be a burgeoning part of American military readiness, as .

Mobolade wants his city’s aerospace sector to have a major hand in developing Golden Dome, an air defense system touted by the Trump administration that would — similar to, but much larger than, Israel’s Iron Dome.

Just a day before Mobolade sat down with The Denver Post in his sixth-floor office in downtown Colorado Springs earlier this month, space and missile defense company Mobius announced it would be opening a new office in the city, and with it, 75 new high-paying jobs.

“We were a strong aerospace, defense, cyber security community before the Air Force established Space Command — it’s 40% of our economy,” the mayor said. “We were strong before. We’re going to be strong afterwards.”

Long-lasting political tussle

The fight over U.S. Space Command’s permanent location stretches back the better part of a decade. In 2019, Trump, in his first term, at Peterson Space Force Base as a standalone entity after a 17-year dormancy.

But in the waning days of Trump’s first administration, the president decided to make Space Command’s permanent home at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville — pending an environmental review.

That review was completed approximately nine months into President Biden’s term in 2021 and found no significant impact from Alabama being the command site. But the new administration did not act on the finding. Instead, in mid-2023, the Biden White House said the headquarters would remain at Peterson, citing a potential disruption in readiness and the time that would be lost relocating staff across the country.

Cost and mission readiness has been a common refrain against the Space Command move from Colorado politicians on both sides of the aisle ever since — right up to the day Trump announced his decision on Sept. 2. In a rare , made up of eight members of Congress and a pair of U.S. senators, the assessment was blunt: “Bottom line — moving Space Command headquarters weakens our national security at the worst possible time.”

In a statement sent to the Post last week, U.S. Rep. Jason Crow said the relocation of U.S. Space Command “eliminates Colorado jobs, wastes millions of taxpayer dollars and makes America less safe.”

An attempt to reach the office of Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank, who represents Colorado Springs, went unanswered.

“Colorado has a highly-skilled workforce, and America cannot afford to sideline this talent and lose the new space race — yet this decision hands the advantage to America’s adversaries,” said Crow, a Democrat and a former Army officer.

But Trump’s victory last fall gave Alabama officials renewed hope that Huntsville, known as for its long history in the rocket and space industries and as home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command, could claim U.S. Space Command as its own.

Just a couple of weeks after Trump’s November win, Colorado’s elected leaders began the mad scramble to persuade the president to keep the command at Peterson with a letter. That was followed by another entreaty in April, this time by just the Republican half of the state’s congressional delegation.

But the smart money at that point said it was just a matter of time before the president would act on his original commitment to make Alabama the permanent command headquarters. That moment arrived the day after Labor Day with an announcement from the Oval Office.

Citing Colorado’s system of mail-in voting as “a big factor” in his decision, Trump congratulated the Alabama delegation and playfully asked them “to leave me alone now” — an indication of just how hard the behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts had been on both sides.

But the decision was no laughing matter to Colorado officials. Attorney General Phil Weiser immediately threatened to sue the Trump administration to keep the command in Colorado, that his office is “very confident in our ability to defend whatever allegations are made.”

And Crow, in his statement to the Post, made clear that he doesn’t believe the fight is over.

“I will continue fighting to keep Space Command in Colorado,” he said.

‘So many other space jobs’

For now, experts and others are trying to determine just what the economic and reputational damage might be to Colorado Springs from the move, and whether it could impact U.S. Space Command’s mission readiness.

Kari Bingen, senior fellow in the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the issue is more complicated than the way some in Colorado are portraying it. The relocation, while it may appear to be a whimsical act on the part of the president, has been studied thoroughly with multiple evaluations done by the and the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

“There was a process and objective criteria, and that’s what the GAO was asked to look at twice,” she said.

One of those GAO reports, , concluded that Huntsville was the preferred site largely due to lower costs. While U.S. Space Command at Peterson was deemed “fully operational,” the report noted that “the current command posture is not sustainable long-term…”

The command currently operates out of four buildings, two on “military installations” and two in leased facilities “located in commercial and residential areas” of Colorado Springs. The report describes “aging infrastructure that cannot fully support the dynamic information technology requirements of the Command.”

The “ad hoc” facilities in Colorado Springs are “inefficient and cumbersome, adversely affecting both mission and command and control,” the GAO states.

“U.S Space Command proposed a construction project for a new multi-story, permanent headquarters facility to replace its current temporary and leased facilities,” the report said.

Those challenges, and the $1.5 billion price tag the GAO cited to rectify them, likely contributed to the military choosing Redstone Arsenal in Alabama as the permanent home of U.S Space Command, Bingen said. Colorado Springs’ best bet at this point, she said, is to position itself optimally for other aerospace and defense initiatives.

“Let’s execute on the decision so we can focus on the mission operational challenges and capabilities ahead,” Bingen said. “I’m not worried for Colorado Springs. It’s clearly an epicenter of national security and space activities.”

There’s also a question of whether all of Colorado’s U.S. Space Command positions would have to move east. The command already has personnel in two other states — at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

“Do all the elements of a combatant command need to be located in the same city?” Bingen said. “No.”

Air Force Maj. Chris Bowyer-Meeder, a public affairs officer with U.S. Space Command at Peterson Space Force Base, said it was too early to talk about the “logistical impacts” of the move.

“U.S. Space Command will expeditiously carry out the direction of the President following last week’s announcement of Huntsville, Alabama, as the command’s permanent headquarters location, while continuing to execute our vital national security missions,” he said in a statement to the Post.

Even absent Space Command, Colorado Springs will have plenty of personnel from the U.S. military’s Space Force branch, which has more than 14,000 military and civilian members, called Guardians, across the nation. Peterson and Schriever Space Force Base, both in Colorado Springs, and Buckley Space Force Base in Aurora together make up half the bases with major Space Force operations.

Then there’s the private sector. L3Harris, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies are among the more than 200 companies in that sector with a presence in Colorado Springs. Delta Solutions, based in the city, works with 150 subcontractors in its support of military and space projects.

“There are so many other space jobs in Colorado Springs,” said Stafford, Delta’s CEO.

He’s looking to expand on the 25,000 square feet Delta already occupies in the city.

Raymond Gonzales, who serves as president of the Denver Metro Economic Development Corporation and as head of the Colorado Space Coalition, said private aerospace employment has leapt 35% along the Front Range in the last decade — to 57,000 workers across 2,500 companies.

Another dozen “active prospects” in the industry are in the pipeline to commence business in Colorado’s urban corridor in the coming years, he said.

“Colorado’s aerospace economy is not dependent on where U.S. Space Command is,” Gonzales said.

Space’s ‘sizzle factor’

Perhaps more elusive than sizing up the economic impact of Space Command’s migration is what such a move could do to Colorado Springs’ image as a leader in space. John Boyd, principal of The Boyd Co., a corporate site selection firm, said there’s no doubt about the prestige U.S. Space Command lends a city.

“There’s no industry that has the sizzle factor like space,” he said. “It’s a tremendous economic development recruiting tool.”

That was evident the day after Trump made his decision known. In front of a screen that bore the words “Huntsville Welcomes U.S. Space Command — You’ve Landed in a Smart Place,” a gathering of .

“Huntsville, and Team Redstone, are mission-ready to support Space Command with our highly skilled workforce, strong military community and a city that embraces innovation,” Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said, making sure to emphasize some of the road and infrastructure improvements the area was undertaking.

On the positive side, Boyd said, is that the hit to Colorado Springs’ prestige of a Space Command migration would be far greater if the city wasn’t already well regarded for its aerospace prowess.

“The reputation and stature of Colorado Springs is well known,” he said. “It will be able to weather this storm.”

That’s how Steve Kanatzar, who founded The Airplane Restaurant nearly 25 years ago on the west boundary of Peterson Space Force Base, sees it.

Kanatzar’s restaurant, which features an eye-catching Boeing KC-97 Air Force plane inside of which diners can eat, has hosted high-level foreign military officials attending the Space Symposium at the Broadmoor Hotel, among other aviation and space enthusiasts.

“You hate to see anyone leave the state,” he said.

But 80% of his customers are locals and tourists, he said. The departure of U.S. Space Command won’t collapse his business.

The last time he worried about the future of his eatery had nothing to do with the military installation next door. It came five years ago during the pandemic, when government orders closed his restaurant for weeks.

“If you put COVID into the picture, nothing will compare with that,” he said.

First, he said voters in Alabama supported his re-election in 2024 by 47 points.

Second, he said that Colorado’s mail-in ballots allow election fraud.

The president of the United States held a press conference on a major decision and told Americans that it was based on his political popularity in one state and a gross lie that he has perpetuated since he lost his first bid for re-election and tried to illegally remain in office.

So we will set the record straight.

Trump won Alabama by almost 31 points in 2024.

Funny thing is that he also won El Paso County in 2024 – by almost 10 points.

Guess that wasn’t enough to sway the president����ap decision as he callously explained.

“We love Alabama. I only won it by about 47 points. I don’t think that influenced my decision, though, right? Right?” Trump quipped with Alabama Sen. Katie Britt standing to one side and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth standing on the other, sharing in a laugh because we all know the answer to that rhetorical question.

We’ve detailed all the ways that keeping the Space Command in El Paso County at Peterson Space Force Base makes sense. It would save time and money by not moving the temporary headquarters out of state. It allows for vast efficiencies because of its proximity to other key military bases in Colorado Springs – the National Space Defense Center, the U.S. Northern Command, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

The Air Force Academy is producing new cadets for the Space Force every year, and Space Force also has a significant presence at Aurora’s Buckley Space Force Base.

Trump isn’t the first president to make a politically motivated decision like this, but he is the first to gloat openly about using his power to punish a state for not supporting his re-election. The message the president is sending is clear — get on board with team Trump or he will try to hurt your state. Trump could have instead lauded Huntsville’s infrastructure or mentioned “Rocket City’s” low cost of living (the main reason Huntsville was selected as the new home for the command during his first term in office). Trump highlighted the political reasons to move the command to send a warning.

And this is par for the course. Since taking office, Trump has flouted long-held ethical standards meant to protect the American people from a president who is full of anger and wrath, and to prevent corruption of our great nation.

We hope this decision and his attack on Colorado will help sway voters in places like El Paso County when Trump tries to retain office in just a few short years.

“The problem I have with Colorado — one of the big problems — they do mail-in voting. They went to all mail-in voting so they have automatically crooked elections and we can’t have that. When a state is for mail-in voting that means they want dishonest elections,” Trump said. “That played a big factor also.”

Colorado’s mail-in ballots are secure, and despite Trump’s claims, repeated audits done by hand have shown that the 2020 election results in Colorado were not fraudulent. The list of voters who participated in the election is public, and despite hours of scouring the list, there is no evidence that any of those voters are fake.

Ballots are tied to individual voters and were audited in counties across the state.

There is simply no evidence that Colorado’s mail-in elections allow widespread fraud, and certainly no evidence that the ballot machines were rigged as Trump continues to claim, supporting his unconstitutional bid to remain in the White House after he lost in 2020.

But Coloradans should not despair at the unfortunate turn the executive branch has taken.

This bad decision has at least united our entire congressional delegation. Our Republican elected representatives, Jeff Hurd, Jeff Crank, Lauren Boebert and Gabe Evans, joined our Democratic representatives, Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Jason Crow, and Brittany Pettersen, in denouncing the move.

U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet also joined the letter, making the sentiment unanimous.

“We are united in fighting to reverse this decision,” they wrote. “Bottom line – moving Space Command headquarters weakens our national security at the worst possible time. … Colorado Springs is the appropriate home for U.S. Space Command, and we will take the necessary action to keep it there.”

Well done.

Such a united front gives us hope that, as President Donald Trump continues to exceed his constitutionally granted authority, our elected representatives will stand strong. For now, it is about Space Command, but soon we will need both the House and the Senate to affirm that states are allowed to hold their elections as they see fit without dangerous federal meddling.

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.

“We’re not waiting to make our case,” U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank said in an early morning video call with reporters. “We’re making our case and we’re doing it right now. We’re going to continue to fight — it makes sense that it be in Colorado. It’s already in Colorado.”

Crank is a freshman who represents the 5th Congressional District where , home to Space Command, sits. He was joined by Reps. Lauren Boebert, Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd, who spoke from an office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Members of Alabama’s congressional delegation , with U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers saying on a podcast that contractors are “ready to turn dirt” on a future Space Command headquarters at the Army’s Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville.

Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told Auburn University’s  Tuesday that he expected a final decision from the Trump administration this month.

“We do expect it to be announced right after the Air Force secretary is named,” he said.

President Donald Trump in January to lead the Air Force. He hasn’t been confirmed to the post yet.

But Colorado’s Republicans were hopeful that no move would happen.

“I’ve asked many of our senior military leaders: What is the military value of moving Space Command out of Colorado Springs?” Crank said Thursday. “And, point blank, they say there isn’t any.”

Evans, who represents Colorado’s 8th Congressional District and is an Army veteran, said he was encouraged by the fact that Trump didn’t immediately move Space Command upon taking office nearly three months ago — shortly after the November election.

“There were a lot of rumors swirling that this was going to be one of those first executive orders dropped on Jan. 20,” Evans said. “As we all know, there was no executive order on Day 1 talking about Space Command.”

Space Command, which is responsible for the nation’s military operations in outer space, was . Located first in Colorado Springs, it was set to move to Alabama after Trump announced that state as his selection for a permanent headquarters in the waning days of his first administration in early 2021.

But former President Joe Biden later and the command remained in Colorado. The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce estimates it supports nearly 1,400 jobs and has a $1 billion impact on the local economy.

Huntsville, home to some of the earliest missiles used in the nation’s space programs, scored higher than Colorado Springs in a Government Accountability Office assessment of potential locations for the command. That same office, however, gave the selection process low marks for documentation, credibility and impartiality and said that senior U.S. officials who were interviewed conveyed that remaining in Colorado Springs “would allow U.S. Space Command to reach full operational capability as quickly as possible.”

With rising military threats from Russia and China, Boebert said Thursday that it was “even more critical for Space Command to avoid being moved across the country.”

The minimum $2 billion price tag to relocate the command would undermine the priorities the administration has set with its budget-cutting Department of Government Efficiency office.

“It really flies in the face of the DOGE operations that are taking place,” the congresswoman said on the call.

The Republican delegation on Monday outlining Colorado’s position on the issue. They wrote that a move to Alabama “would introduce unnecessary risks, disrupt established operations and waste valuable resources.”

The state’s Democratic members of Congress, along with both of the state’s Democratic U.S. senators, have also been vocal about keeping the Space Command in Colorado.

On Thursday’s call, Crank said that with the president’s announcement during his first week back in office of the creation of the — a futuristic network of U.S. weapons in space designed to destroy ground-based missiles within seconds of launch — it’s all the more critical to keep Space Command in Colorado.

“We have to have this seamless coordination between (Colorado Springs-based) Northern Command and Space Command, especially if we’re going to be successful implementing Golden Dome,” he said. “They literally share the same parking lot at Peterson Space Force Base, so I believe there would be a great loss in capability there.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Colorado’s elected officials want to keep the command at Peterson Space Force Base, where it has been based since the service was under then-President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Alabama’s delegation to Congress is gunning to get the command headquarters to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, where Trump had moved it in the waning days of his first term in the White House.

That order was — a decision that kept the service in Colorado Springs, where the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce estimates it supports nearly 1,400 jobs and has a $1 billion impact on the local economy.

“It’s a fully operational and capable command,” U.S. Rep. Jason Crow said in an interview with The Denver Post. “It continues to build out and perform the mission it is supposed to. We simply can’t move it — we will jeopardize our national security if we do.”

But in a preview of what could be a tough scrap ahead, Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama this week that he was confident President-elect Trump “will move it back, and I think, very early in his first few days.”

That claim was echoed by U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who that he thought the soon-to-be president would sign an executive order bringing the command back to Huntsville.

Crow, a Democrat and a former Army Ranger, said he has been in contact with the seven other members of the state’s congressional delegation — in addition to Sens.  John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet — and they plan to “work hand in glove together” to keep U.S. Space Command in Colorado.

The command is responsible for military operations in outer space, which starts at 62 miles above sea level. The Pentagon is growing increasingly concerned about rapid advances by China and Russia in space-based operations that threaten U.S. troops and other military assets on the ground, along with American satellites in orbit, the .

On Friday, Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado Springs was named the “preferred and final” home of Space Delta 15, an organization under U.S. Space Command that provides space battle management, intelligence and cyber capabilities to U.S. Space Forces. Delta 15 has been based at Schriever on an interim basis since last year.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, said Delta 15’s permanent landing in Colorado complements the Space Command infrastructure that has already been established in the state. He did not say whether he thought Friday’s announcement was a concession to Colorado ahead of a potential move of Space Command to Alabama under a Trump administration.

“Locating Space Force Delta 15 – which leads command and control for U.S. Space Command – in Colorado Springs makes all the sense in the world,” Hickenlooper said in a statement.

Air Force officials said Delta 15 would be operational by summer of 2027, with approximately 250 personnel on hand.

Newly elected U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans told reporters at a press conference last week that he was on “Team Colorado” when it comes to Space Command staying put. The Republican Army vet and former police officer, who ousted Yadira Caraveo on Nov. 5 in the 8th Congressional District, said moving would cost an exorbitant sum of money.

“Why do you want to spend money to move it out of here?” he asked.

Evans said his grandfather, a naval aviator, moved to Colorado to work in the state’s robust aerospace industry 50 years ago.

“That’s why I live in Colorado — because of our aerospace sector,” he said.

Evans is part of the GOP half of Colorado’s congressional delegation that could have more influence with Trump as he nears a decision on the command. All four are in lockstep on keeping the service in Colorado.

U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Crank, whose new district is the home of the command, wasn’t available for an interview this week. But he told The Post this month that “it makes eminent sense to keep it here.” U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Hurd, who will represent the Western Slope in the new Congress, said the same through a spokesman Thursday.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, a stalwart Trump supporter who is returning to Congress in January to represent Colorado’s 4th District, said “protecting and maintaining all of our military assets in Colorado is the best way to keep our nation strong without any threat of interruption that could harm our ability to protect Americans.”

Boebert’s appeal was similar in tone to a letter top Republicans in the Colorado House sent to Trump on Friday, saying the presence of the military’s space headquarters in Colorado is “crucial to maintain for both the military’s operational success and our local economic stability.”

Huntsville scored higher than Colorado Springs in a Government Accountability Office assessment of potential locations for the command. The city has long been home to some of the earliest missiles used in the nation’s space programs, including the Saturn V rocket, and it is home to the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command.

That same office, however, gave the selection process low marks for documentation, credibility and impartiality and said that senior U.S. officials interviewed conveyed that remaining in Colorado Springs “would allow U.S. Space Command to reach full operational capability as quickly as possible.”

Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Space Command to Huntsville in January 2021 was widely panned as a political attempt to reward Tuberville, who challenged the results of the 2020 presidential election in favor of Trump.

Bruce McClintock, lead of the Space Enterprise Initiative at the nonpartisan research firm RAND Corporation and a retired Air Force brigadier general, did not weigh in on whether Alabama or Colorado would ultimately be a better fit for Space Command, but said that any move could lead to disruptions in military readiness.

“Moving any combatant command headquarters invariably introduces turbulence in the workforce,” McClintock said in an email. “The military workforce will go where they are directed but the civilian workforce can choose to stay where they are rather than move.”

If China’s space ambitions are truly a threat to American interests, he wrote, “then one could make the argument that the near-term stability for US SPACECOM should be a factor in the government decision-making process.”

The identified by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment as exceeding the new standards range in size from Thornton, which serves about 155,000 customers, to Dawn of Hope Ranch, a religious retreat in Teller County that serves 55 people.

Some of the larger utilities on the state’s list already are planning to build multimillion-dollar filtration systems, but experts say the smaller water providers will be among the last to fall into compliance. While grant money is available, experts note it’s likely water customers will pay some of the costs via higher rates.

The require drinking water providers to lower the concentration of forever chemicals below the new limit by 2029. The chemicals — , collectively known as PFAS — have been used for decades to make waterproof, nonstick or stain-resistant products and are linked to a wide range of health problems, including cancer and reduced fertility.

“It����ap really going to be a full sprint to the finish line for these facilities to meet the compliance timeline,” said Chris Moody, regulatory technical manager for the American Water Works Association, which represents 4,300 utilities that provide drinking water in the United States. “The systems that are going to struggle the most are going to be the small systems. The larger systems are going to have more purchasing power and will be in the front of the line.”

The city of Brighton will spend millions of dollars to meet the new limits, but was able to include mitigation in the plans for a new treatment plant already in the works. The city’s new water treatment plant — currently under construction and slated for completion in 2027 — will use granular activated carbon filters to reduce the amount of PFAS in the water it provides to more than 55,000 people.

Brighton spent about $580,000 to research, test and design the new filter system and at least $8 million to build the filters, said Scott Olsen, the city’s director of utilities. They also expect to spend at least $1 million a year to replace the filters and dispose of used ones.

The cost would be much higher if the city were not already building a new plant, Olsen said. Most providers will have to retrofit existing facilities.

The last year discovered PFAS in two of the four wells it uses to provide water to about 10,000 people in Summit County, executive director Scott Price said.

Since then, the district has contracted with an engineering firm to explore options to bring the PFAS levels under the new EPA limit of 4 parts per trillion — the equivalent of four drops of liquid in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Potential treatments include reverse osmosis, activated carbon filters or drilling new wells.

“Nobody wants this stuff — we want to get it out,” Price said.

The water district raised $26 million through bonds for its 10-year master plan. The district planned to use some of that money to replace old pipes and increase storage capacity, which would allow for clean water even in the case of a wildfire. If the district has to use that money to remove PFAS, however, the other projects will be postponed, Price said.

Like many water providers, Price doesn’t know where the PFAS in the district’s wells originated, but he’s trying to find out the source.

“We’re already on the path to recovery,” he said. “We’ve acknowledged it and are fixing it.”

In Colorado, state water regulators have a good idea which water systems have PFAS in their drinking water supplies, said Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who is an expert in PFAS contamination.

Fifty-six other water providers in the state have found PFAS in their water but in concentrations below the EPA’s limit, including Aurora, Frisco and Gunnison.

“With the attention people have been giving to PFAS in Colorado I’m not expecting a ton of new locations to be identified,” Higgins said.

Who should pay?

PFAS has been a recognized problem for at least a decade, but it wasn’t until 2020 that federal regulators began signification pursuing regulations, said , a partner at the Dorsey & Whitney law firm in Denver.

The drinking water standards finalized earlier this month were an important step in the regulation process, Zobell said.

“The problem is: Who is going to bear the cost of doing that?” he said.

The federal government to help communities test and treat drinking water for PFAS. That money is intended for rural or disproportionately impacted communities.

That����ap not nearly enough, Zobell said. Unless there is a leap in PFAS-removal technology in the next three years, many providers will have to raise rates or find money elsewhere, Zobell said.

“For very small, rural areas this could be dramatic and, frankly, I don’t know how they’re going to pay for it,” he said.

Moody, with the American Water Works Association, said the financial burden has been a primary concern among water providers.

His organization estimates that the smaller the water company, the more expensive it will be to come into compliance by 2029. So upgrading a system to filter out PFAS could cost $1,000 to $2,000 per household per year compared to about $50 per household per year for the country’s largest systems.

There are just a handful of companies in the United States that build and install the filtration systems, Moody said. They will go after the larger contracts, leaving the smallest, more rural water companies in the back of the line because those contracts will be less profitable.

“Spreading cost out among households can stack up pretty quickly,” Moody said.

Because Colorado can have wild temperature swings, a new filtration system would require an enclosure to protect the equipment on top of the expense of the actual system. Utilities also need specialized workers who know how to operate the systems, Moody said.

On top of the new PFAS standards, a new federal regulation on lead and copper levels is coming and that also will be costly.

“At the end of the day, water systems are going to have to increase their water rates to comply or pull from other budgets,” Moody said.

A found that removing PFAS from the state’s wastewater treatment plants would cost between $14 billion and $28 billion over two decades. While the chemicals can be bought for between $50 per pound and $1,000 per pound, it costs between $2.7 million per pound and $18 million per pound to remove from city wastewater, the study found.

What����ap next for PFAS regulations?

One avenue to funding PFAS removal could be litigation. designating two widely-used PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances under the same law that regulates Superfund sites. If the designation becomes final, it would expand the types of entities that could be sued for PFAS contamination.

The new regulation places liability not only on PFAS manufacturers, but also on companies that transported the chemicals, used them or released them into the environment.

PFAS when industries release the chemicals, or they wash or flake off consumer products in landfills and into groundwater. Firefighting foam also has contained PFAS and high concentrations of the chemicals have been found where firefighters trained with the foam.

The regulation not only creates an avenue to fund PFAS removal but also dissuades companies from using PFAS at all, Zobell said.

“Anyone who has touched it could be liable,” he said.

Colorado state lawmakers are pursuing legislation that would ban the sale of certain products if they contain PFAS, such as cookware, outdoor apparel, ski wax and artificial turf. The goal of is to prevent the introduction of the chemicals into the environment and encourage companies to stop using the substances on their products.

One thing utility managers would like to see is more EPA regulations for the polluters, Moody said.

“A lot of members are raising the issue of, if they’re finalizing drinking water standards for PFAS, they need to take a more aggressive approach on the creators of PFAS,” he said. “If the levels are going to go that low, we need to focus on where the biggest levels of exposure are for people.”

For example, in Colorado, the Suncor Energy oil refinery in Commerce City dumps PFAS into Sand Creek, which feeds into the Platte River — a source of drinking water for Thornton and other cities in northeast Colorado, as well as a source of irrigation water for agriculture.

���ܲԳ��ǰ�’s new state water-pollution permit, which is awaiting EPA approval, would allow the company to dump up to 70 parts per trillion per day of PFAS into the creek — 17 times more concentrated than the EPA limit. That new regulation only applies to drinking water providers, though.

Yet Suncor’s pollutants in Sand Creek will end up in the drinking water supply and now the burden is on local water districts to filter it out, environmentalists, including a group that has appealed the permit, argue.

For now, no drinking water districts or companies have sued Suncor for their PFAS problems.

But litigation is brewing in other parts of the country. Last year, Thornton sued dozens of companies and people who produce the forever chemicals, claiming they are responsible for the contamination of the city’s water supply.

Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, is an expert in PFAS forensics and serves as an expert witness in legal cases involving PFAS contamination in water systems.

“You can identify whose PFAS it is,” Higgins said. “But it does take a lot of careful evaluation. It depends on the level of contamination.”

In Security and Widefield in El Paso County, the U.S. Department of Defense paid for treatment systems after PFAS contamination was traced to firefighting foam used on Peterson Air Force Base.

Higgins said it was important to note that these new standards only apply to the drinking water coming through the taps inside people’s homes, and most water districts in the state do not have detectable levels of PFAS in their supplies, including Denver Water.

That means most people’s greatest exposure to PFAS is in the food they eat, primarily fish and eggs, Higgins said. He is interested to see what steps — if any — the federal government takes to address PFAS in the food supply.

“I’m not expecting the FDA to come out and issue guidelines for eggs any time soon,” he said.

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: the Marksheffel Fire is now 100% contained.

Again we want to thank all of our regional partners for their hard work and assistance on keeping this fire away from homes, the COS Airport, Peterson Space Force Base and other major areas of our city.

— CSFD PIO (@CSFDPIO)

Investigators believe the 640-acre grass fire was started accidentally by chains dragging behind a vehicle, the fire department said

At least 10 Colorado Springs fire units and units from two other departments, Ellicott Fire Protection District and Cheyenne Mountain Fire & Emergency Services, responded to the fire in the area of Marksheffel and Drennen roads Sunday evening.

Fire crews secured a perimeter around the fire by 6:30 p.m. Sunday and got the fire to 90% containment by 11 a.m. Monday, according to .

Of the more than 191,800 ballots counted shortly before 10 p.m., Lamborn had 56% of the vote with more than 106,900 votes. Torres took 41% of the vote with more than 78,700 votes. The Associated Press called the race for Lamborn.

Since Lamborn’s first election in 2006, the 68-year-old Colorado Springs Republican has never received less than 57% of the vote in the conservative 5th Congressional District, . Democratic opponents only reached more than 40% of the vote twice (in 2006 and 2014) and only by a fraction of a percent.

Despite controversies alleging Lamborn abused his power and flouted pandemic restrictions at the expense of his staff, he easily won the Republican primary.

Lamborn is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegations his staff ran personal errands for his wife and helped his son apply for federal jobs. A former staffer sued the congressman last year, as well, accusing Lamborn of disregarding COVID-19 safety protocols early in the pandemic and claiming he let his son live in the basement of the U.S. Capitol rent-free.

Lamborn denied the allegations, saying they came from a disgruntled former employee.

A staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, Lamborn voted — alongside nearly 150 others — .

Trump moved U.S. Space Command from Lamborn’s district in Colorado Springs to Alabama, a decision the congressman and his Democratic and Republican colleagues in Colorado are working to reverse.

Lamborn told The Denver Post his top priorities next session would be to address inflation, stop President Joe Biden’s “restrictive energy policies” and regain border control.

“My unique experience is the combination of having been a state and federal lawmaker, a former business and real estate lawyer, and being closely connected to Colorado Springs, a conservative, military and tourism center of Colorado,” Lamborn said.

Challenger Torres said he wanted to unite the 5th Congressional District with his campaign to unseat Lamborn. The political newcomer said he moved to Colorado Springs from Puerto Rico as a child and, after high school, joined the Air Force Reserves and worked at Peterson Air Force Base.

Torres, 42, told The Post his top priority if elected would be people’s reproductive justice.

“I believe fundamentally that Black and brown communities are affected on a much higher level,” Torres said. “The loss of this basic human right to access of health care should never be a fear of any of my constituents.”

Despite a spat of controversies alleging that U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn abused his power and flouted pandemic restrictions at the expense of his staff, he won the Republican primary handily. He fended off a , his next closest competitor, by nearly 14 points.

Now the only person standing between the eight-term congressman and another two years in Congress is .

Since voters in the conservative district first elected Lamborn in 2006, he’s never received less than 57% of the vote, . Democratic opponents only grabbed more than 40% of the vote twice (in 2006 and 2014) and even then only by a fraction of a percent.

Lamborn is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegations that his staff ran personal errands for his wife and helped his son apply for federal jobs. A former staffer sued the congressman last year too, accusing him of disregarding COVID-19 safety protocols early in the pandemic and claiming that Lamborn let his son live in the basement of the U.S. Capitol rent-free.

The congressman denied the allegations, arguing they came from a disgruntled former employee.

A staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, Lamborn voted – alongside nearly 150 others – . Even so, Trump moved U.S. Space Command from Lamborn’s district in Colorado Springs to Alabama, a decision the congressman and his Democratic and Republican colleagues in Colorado are working to reverse.

Lamborn sits on the House’s Natural Resources Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. He’s pushed – unsuccessfully – to defund the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. He has spoken out against abortion rights and in favor of gun rights. in late 2020 was to rename a post office in Colorado Springs.

“Throughout my time in Congress, I have dedicated my time and strength to defending our Constitution, fortifying our national security, strengthening our economy, advocating for our veterans and those bravely serving our country, and protecting our traditional values,” Lamborn said on his campaign website.

“I have pushed back time and again against the Democrats’ outrageous spending, unconstitutional mandates, weakness on defense, assaults on the Second Amendment, and open-border policies,” Lamborn continued.

Torres said on his website that he wants to unite Colorado’s 5th Congressional District with his campaign to unseat Lamborn. The political newcomer said he moved to Colorado Springs from Puerto Rico at the age of four and after high school joined the U.S. Air Force Reserves, where he worked at Peterson Air Force Base.

“I want to represent this district that thrives on its belief system, a strong commitment to family and the desire to continue to succeed,” Torres said on his website. “I will combat any discrimination and inequalities that occur and assist in building relationships that have been tattered between our communities.”

support for veterans’ healthcare, high age limits for certain firearms, protecting access to abortion and birth control and enacting federal carbon fees to encourage companies to switch from fossil to renewable fuels.

, a Colorado Springs-based defense contractor, has landed a five-year contract to provide services and support to Space Command headquarters. The contract is the largest ever for the company, which was started in 2000.

“It����ap a game changer for us,” said Mark Stafford, president and CEO of the service-disabled veteran-owned business.

The company will provide 155 people to work on the contract, with 82 coming from Delta Solutions and the rest from the company’s business partners in Colorado Springs. The work will include intelligence, logistics, communications and war-game exercises, said Scott Anible, the chief operating officer.

It’s just not clear where the headquarters will be. Defense officials said in January 2021 that Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., not Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, will be the permanent location.

“Delta Solutions is ready to support in either location or in both locations if that happens,” Stafford said.

Space Command is a combatant command of the Department of Defense and is responsible for military operations in space. Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs was made Space Command’s temporary headquarters and then its provisional headquarters.

But defense officials announced in the waning days of the Trump administration the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., as the choice for the permanent location. Colorado was considered the frontrunner for the permanent site, with four of the six finalists in 2019. In 2020, Peterson was the only Colorado location among the candidates.

A final decision on the Space Command’s permanent headquarters is expected in the fall, according to the

Colorado elected officials across the political spectrum have denounced the selection of Huntsville as a political move. In January 2021, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, a Republican, said outgoing President Donald Trump chose Alabama to reward Sen. Tommy Tuberville, one of the senators who challenged certification of the presidential election results to favor Trump.

In August 2021, Trump told the host of a syndicated radio show in Alabama that he single-handedly said, “Let����ap go to Alabama” with the Space Command headquarters.

A heavily redacted report by the Defense Department’s inspector general said the U.S. Air Force considered several criteria when it chose Alabama. However, a report released by the federal Government Accountability Office in June gave the selection process low marks for impartiality, credibility and documentation.

The GAO didn’t say where the permanent headquarters should be located.

“Whether it goes to Huntsville or Colorado Springs, we have offices in both locations so we’re able to support U.S. Space Command at either location,” Stafford of Delta Solutions said.

Stafford noted that Colorado has a thriving aerospace industry, “all up and down the Front Range here,” and a university system with strong programs that benefit the industry.

Delta Solutions expects to add 35 employees to its workforce of 315 and add 10,000 square feet of office space in Colorado Spring

Gov. Jared Polis said his administration continues to advocate for the U.S. Space Command “to remain in its rightful home in Colorado Springs.”

“Colorado is the epicenter of national security space and Peterson Space Force Base continues to execute critical missions in the space domain,” Polis said Wednesday in an email.

U.S. Space Command didn’t return a request for comment on the timing of a decision.

The Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce continues to work with local, state and federal elected officials, industry representatives and other business organizations to keep Space Command’s headquarters in the state, said Jim Lovewell, the chamber’s chief defense development officer.

“Colorado Springs is the optimal place for the permanent home of Space Command. I see no other place in our nation or overseas that has that kind of military space operational concentration,” Lovewell said.

Colorado Springs has five military installations and more than 84,000 veterans, according to the chamber of commerce. The aerospace and defense industry makes up 40% of the local economy, contributing more than $7 billion annually.

Events in the last two years make it even more critical that Space Command stays where it is, Lovewell said. Those include Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s growing aggression toward Taiwan, he added.

“Any discussion of moving the headquarters is going to result in years of degraded operational capability and that’s going to harm both national security and military readiness,” Lovewell said. “It’s also going to cost billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars and take years to complete.”

He also thinks many people will decide not to relocate if the headquarters is moved out of Colorado. “We’ve got a lot of space talent here.”