Key justices appeared wary about the potential sweep of the Colorado-based litigation, but torn over the complex questions of federal and state law raised by the case.

Officials in the and argue their lawsuit is an attempt to hold and accountable for their contributions to climate change.

They say that worsening disasters such as floods and wildfires — including 2021’s devastating Marshall fire — put a heavy financial burden on local communities, and the industry should bear part of that cost.

The city and county first sued the oil companies in 2018, years before the Marshall fire destroyed nearly 1,100 homes in Boulder County and left two people dead. Total damage was estimated at $2 billion, the costliest wildfire in Colorado history.

The oil and gas companies argue that a flurry of lawsuits in state courts is not the way to deal with the global issue.

Elected officials from Boulder spoke outside the Supreme Court building after Monday’s oral arguments, urging the justices to allow the city and the county to have their day in state court.

“We believe we should have a fair opportunity to present the facts and allow a local court to determine whether the defendants have harmed Boulder County,” county commissioner Claire Levy said in a news release. “And if so, whether they should be required to pay their fair share of the damage. We urge the Supreme Court to allow our case to continue.”

Environmentalists and Boulder residents, including Marshall fire survivors, also rallied outside the Boulder County Courthouse.

Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said the city still believes in the lawsuit it filed eight years ago.

“Today, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the companies’ arguments to stop our case before we ever have our day in court. We are asking the court to let us have that day, because this is not an abstract issue for Boulder,” Brockett said in a news release. “It is a reality for our community. People across Boulder have experienced the impacts of a changing climate, from hotter summers and extreme heat to drought, declining snowpack, worsening wildfire risk and devastating fires. And every time those impacts intensify, our community pays.”

Representatives of Suncor Energy, which owns Colorado’s only oil refinery, and ExxonMobil, the country’s largest oil and gas producer, declined to comment on the oral arguments.

But Phil Goldberg, a lawyer for the , which is part of the , said the oil companies’ side was heartened by the justices’ questioning of whether climate problems caused by international and national emissions can be turned into state liability claims.

“The justices recognized that the claims in this case go far beyond conduct in any one state, which is why this lawsuit is inherently about interstate and global emissions,” Goldberg said in a statement sent to The Denver Post. “We are hopeful that the court����ap focus on the fundamental problems with climate liability will lead it to clarify that the governance of interstate climate emissions belongs with federal policymakers, not state courts.”

Boulder case is part of a wave of legal action against oil companies

Governments from largely blue-leaning areas around the country have filed similar lawsuits seeking damages that could total billions of dollars, part of a wave of legal action worldwide seeking to leverage action through the courts.

“Presumably, if you prevail, the next day, a municipality in every single state will file a lawsuit,” said Chief Justice John Roberts. “How do you think that will work out on the ground?”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said a win by Boulder could bankrupt the oil companies and other potential defendants.

“I mean, anyone is a potential defendant for a suit like this. Any manufacturer, any business,” he said.

A win for the oil and gas companies at the Supreme Court, meanwhile, could shut down dozens of similar cases filed in recent years.

The U.S. Supreme Court will open its term with Boulder’s climate lawsuit. Here’s how it could affect similar cases.

Suncor and Exxon argue that the Clean Air Act gives the federal government -- not the states -- the power to regulate emissions.

They have the support of the Trump administration, which argues the lawsuits are an unconstitutional attempt to regulate planet-warming emissions and impose Colorado’s state law beyond its borders.

But Roberts and other justices pointed out that state courts consider lawsuits about myriad issues that have nationwide reach. “I guess I’m not quite sure what makes this situation different from those,” Roberts said.

The court is also weighing a jurisdictional question that could allow it an “off-ramp” to avoid deciding the issues right away. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson seemed like a vote in favor of that path.

“Why shouldn’t we wait and hear all of these claims once the state courts are done?” she asked.

Alito absent due to ethics recusal

The case was heard without Justice Samuel Alito, who recused himself just a week before arguments after facing calls to step aside because he owns stock in oil companies. That raises the possibility of a tie vote.

A deadlock would leave in place a decision from Colorado’s highest court allowing the case to proceed.

Attorney Kannon Shanmugam, representing the industry, urged the justices to reverse that ruling. He said the Boulder case was attempting to use the courts to decide a public policy issue that is properly up to Congress and other elected officials.

“Climate change is certainly one of the most pressing issues” facing the country, but the lawsuit “is exactly the wrong way to go about” addressing it, he said.

Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris said Boulder’s case “egregiously exceeds” the state’s authority. The county essentially declares itself a victim of actions that occurred largely out of state, she said.

But Kevin Russell, an attorney representing Boulder, argued that state lawsuits can address damage in Colorado, regardless of where the fossil fuels are produced.

Boulder is not trying to regulate greenhouse gas emissions or stop the companies from continuing to produce oil and gas, Russell said. Instead, officials are seeking to hold the companies accountable for allegedly misleading the public about their contribution to global warming by burning fossil fuels, he said.

'Chapter 3' of the case trilogy, after tobacco and opioids

Justice Elena Kagan compared the climate case to previous state-based lawsuits against the tobacco industry and opioid makers.

“This is Chapter 3,” she said, noting the similarities of states claiming harms from products produced nationally and even internationally.

“This is a different book,″ replied Shanmugam, the industry lawyer. Harms claimed by Boulder “are diffused nationwide and indeed worldwide,” he said.

Trump’s Republican administration has rolled back environmental regulations, including a move last month by the Environmental Protection Agency to repeal rules that limit emissions from power plants fueled by coal and natural gas. States and cities have already sued over the repeal of the power plant rule.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court has been skeptical of environmental regulations in the past, including in a 2022 decision limiting the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

A decision is expected in the coming months.

On October 5, the Supreme Court takes up a new version of that question in Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County. Boulder seeks damages under Colorado law from Exxon Mobil and Suncor for local costs it attributes to climate change. The Colorado Supreme Court refused to dismiss the case, holding that federal law does not pre-empt the claims. The nation’s justices will now review that ruling, assuming they conclude they have jurisdiction to do so at this stage.

Boulder is one case among two dozen, filed by cities, counties and states in a coordinated campaign that started a decade ago. What the Supreme Court says here will reverberate well beyond Colorado. The question is not who pays for climate costs but which institution has the authority and the reach to decide.

Colorado has confronted interstate problems before. When I was Attorney General, our state was before the Supreme Court in its long-running dispute with Kansas over the Groundwater pumping in Colorado had arguably reduced usable flows into Kansas. Any harm was downstream, but the river was part of an interstate system governed by a compact between sovereigns. The legal mechanism was different from the one before the Court today, but the institutional problem was not. The river crossed state borders. The legal framework had to cross them too.

As Secretary of the Interior, I saw the same principle from another direction. In 2003, I signed the at Hoover Dam after years of negotiation among the Colorado River Basin states and the federal government. The agreement helped rein California’s use back within its allocation while protecting the shares of the other basin states. Every farm and city along that river had a local interest. None could govern the river alone.

Now consider the phenomenon underlying Boulder’s climate lawsuit. Fossil fuels are produced and consumed across the country and around the world—in cars, factories, farms and power plants. Their combustion produces greenhouse gases that mix with emissions from innumerable other sources in a common atmosphere. Boulder seeks compensation under state nuisance law for costs it says arrive in Colorado through that global process. There is no single oil well upstream. There is no single source whose emissions can be followed across a state line. The sources are everywhere.

Whatever legal theory is attached to the claim, its interstate and international character presents a difficult question about the reach of state law.

The Supreme Court has confronted a narrower version of the problem before. In International Paper Co. v. Ouellette, it held that Vermont nuisance law could not govern pollution from a New York paper mill. The Court recognized that interstate sources otherwise could be subjected to multiple, conflicting state regimes. When the “source” is not a single mill but the entire global fossil fuel economy, the logic of Ouellette should apply with greater force, not less.

Boulder’s response is that it seeks money, not regulation of interstate emissions. The distinction is real, but it does not resolve the case. A series of damages awards, entered by different state courts under different standards, would steer the nation’s energy development without any of the deliberation that Congress and federal agencies are supposed to bring to it.

There is a practical problem as well. Energy policy does not stand still. It changes with technology, with supplies , and with geopolitics. This year’s turmoil around the Strait of Hormuz pushed oil above $100 a barrel and sent prices moving sharply as supply routes opened, closed and shifted. Congress, legislatures and agencies can alter policies as circumstances change.

Damages litigation works differently. It looks backward, fixes responsibility on a historical record, and produces a judgment that cannot adapt as circumstances change. Multiply that process across dozens of state court systems, applying different state laws to the same global phenomenon, and the result is not a national policy but a patchwork of potentially conflicting judgments that limit lawmakers’ and companies’ ability to adapt.

The question before the justices is therefore narrower than the climate debate and more enduring. They need not decide whether climate change is serious. They need not write national energy policy. Their task is to determine whether one state’s law may assign legal responsibility for consequences produced through activity that crosses every border.

That is an old American problem. Water disputes taught the West that a local harm can also be an interstate issue. Climate change makes the boundary harder to see, not less important. The atmosphere has no state line. To provide legal certainty that is vital for our nation’s energy future, the law still has to know where one state’s authority ends.

Gale Norton is president of Norton Regulatory Strategies. She was Colorado Attorney General 1991-1999 and Secretary of the Interior 2001-2006.

Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil are asking the Supreme Court to block Boulder’s climate lawsuit from proceeding in a Colorado district court, arguing that such cases should be heard in federal courts. The justices will not consider the merits of Boulder’s claims that the two companies knew their emissions caused climate change and deceived the public about the harm.

While the arguments will involve complex, tedious questions over legal jurisdiction, the stakes are high for oil and gas companies and those who want to make them pay for the environmental and human health harms caused by climate change.

For weeks, various interests have held forums and sent a barrage of news releases to the media to sway the court of public opinion on whether oil and gas companies knew about the damage their emissions were causing. The politics surrounding climate change are in full view as liberals and conservatives take sides in how the case should go. And billions of dollars are on the line should the oil and gas companies ultimately lose at trial, and that brings industry warnings that consumers would pay the price in more expensive fuel to power their homes, businesses and automobiles.

On Monday, recused himself from the case because he owns stock in other oil and gas companies. that it was a prudent decision but not required.

City and county elected leaders from Boulder are traveling to Washington, D.C., for , and environmental activists are planning a rally at 9 a.m. Monday outside the Boulder County courthouse.

Adam Sopko, an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, said the case involves a complicated legal question about jurisdiction and “highly consequential matters of law and policy.”

But he also said the Supreme Court is drawing attention by placing the Boulder v Suncor case first on its docket for the 2026-2027 term. Oral arguments begin at 8 a.m. Monday.

“In other words, they are bringing the spotlight on their dockets,” he said.

Still, the Supreme Court’s decision could determine the fate of 30 other climate liability cases pending in various courts around the United States. Sopko, who co-authored an amicus brief that argues the Supreme Court lacks jurisdiction, said it will depend on the nuances of the justices’ opinion. That is expected to come in early 2027.

Officials from the city of Boulder, Boulder County, Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil either declined comment or did not respond to The Denver Post’s interview requests for this story.

Boulder’s lawsuit against Suncor, which owns the only oil refinery in Colorado, and ExxonMobil, the nation’s largest oil and gas company, has bounced around state and federal courts since it was filed in 2018 in Boulder County District Court as the two companies have fought to keep it from going to trial.

“These big oil companies are really desperate to escape trial in these cases so they’re asking the Supreme Court to step in and save them from trial,” said Corey Riday-White, legal director for The Center for Climate Integrity. “It����ap clear the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want the damning evidence of their climate lies to be presented at trial.”

The city and county of Boulder want to hold the two companies liable for damages caused by climate change, including devastating floods and wildfires, a diminishing water supply and poor air quality. Boulder wants the courts to force the companies to pay for the costs of climate impact. The lawsuit does not seek to stop fossil fuel production in Colorado or to regulate emissions.

Over the past eight years, thousands of pages of legal documents have been filed as the companies tried unsuccessfully to move the case to federal court. They also lost after filing a motion to dismiss in state court.

Most recently, the companies asked the Colorado Supreme Court to intervene and decide if the state courts have jurisdiction. But the state supreme court affirmed in a 5-2 decision that Boulder’s legal claims are not preempted by federal law and that a trial could proceed in Boulder district court.

Now the companies are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. They claim that federal law shields them from lawsuits over climate change and its associated harms and that state law cannot apply.

Some legal experts argue that Boulder should not be able to sue in state court because harmful greenhouse gas emissions originate in other states and overseas. Emissions that originate outside of Colorado should not be part of a lawsuit that is adjudicated in state courts, they argue.

That’s not how civil cases should work, said Phil Goldberg, a lawyer for the Manufacturers Accountability Project, which is funded by the National Association of Manufacturers.

“The rights and responsibility for climate change have to be decided at the federal level,” Goldberg said. “You can’t let one state decide climate law for the rest of the country or the rest of the world for that matter.”

Others warn that if Boulder’s lawsuit is successful oil and gas companies could be financially crippled and other industries will be the next in line for lawsuits over climate change.

“All you have to do is swap the energy defendants and the name Suncor and it����ap the same strategy,” said Michael Toth, research director at the at The University of Texas at Austin. “If it can happen to one industry, it can happen to all industries.”

Chris Winter, executive director of CU’s for Natural Resources, Energy and Environmental Law, said the climate case puts the federal government, particularly the Trump administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, in an awkward position.

In September, the EPA announced it will repeal rules that limit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that burn fossil fuels and will take a step to prevent future presidents from regulating pollution, saying the EPA lacks authority under the federal Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

In the Boulder climate case, however, the U.S. Department of Justice wrote a brief that argues federal law preempts state law in climate cases.

Winter described the administration’s conflicting positions as a “Kafkaesque disorientation.”

“How can we be hearing a statutory preemption argument from the oil industry and, by the way, from the Department of Justice, at the same time that we’re hearing the federal government say, ‘Oh, we have no statutory authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act?” Winter said Wednesday during a panel discussion on the case at CU’s law school. “So that’s awfully confusing.”

The nine-county region logged 66 days during which ozone pollution exceeded federal standards, according to data compiled by the , a quasi-governmental agency focused on solutions to Colorado’s air pollution problem.

The region also logged 66 high ozone days in 2012, and its worst year was 2021, when it marked 67 high ozone days, according to , which goes back to 1995.

Mike Silverstein, the Regional Air Quality Council’s director, said wildfire smoke contributed to the 2026 ozone pollution problem but was not the sole reason levels were high this summer. Even if the council subtracted the days that smoke clouded the skies, the number would still be too high, he said.

“We have a homegrown problem that smoke only exacerbates,” Silverstein said.

The summer’s poor air quality could lead the to downgrade the northern Front Range’s standing to an “extreme” failure to meet federal air quality standards as defined by the Clean Air Act. That downgrade, which could happen after July 2027, would lead to higher fees assessed to industrial polluters to pay for programs aimed at improving the region’s air quality.

Metro Denver and the northern Front Range are now designated as being in “severe non-attainment” of those federal standards.

The region’s continued failure to control its ground-level ozone pollution also causes people — especially those with lung diseases such as asthma, elderly people and infants — to get sick, driving up health care costs.

“The health burden of air pollution is not evenly shared among us,” said Nick Torres, advocacy director for the American Lung Association of Colorado. “Let’s be clear — breathing air pollution is harmful to everyone. But some people are more at risk of illness and even death from their exposure.”

The lung association last year in the United States for ozone pollution, he said. More than 400,000 people in the metro area suffer from asthma and another 200,000 suffer from cardiovascular disease, and high ozone levels impact their overall health.

Ground-level ozone pollution forms on hot summer days when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds — both of which are created by burning fossil fuels — bake in the bright sun and smother the region. That blanket of chemicals traps heat close to the Earth, raising temperatures and making it hotter and more difficult for people to breathe.

Colorado’s ozone season lasts from mid-May to mid-September.

The state’s mountains and weather patterns create a challenging environment for controlling ozone pollution, and wildfires contribute to it because they send fine particles into the air. But experts say the problem is made worse by the millions of cars on the state’s roads, oil and gas drilling, and industrial pollution.

Colorado has struggled to control its ozone pollution for decades, and it is out of compliance with two federal air quality standards.

The first standard is from 2008, by which time the state was supposed to lower its average ozone pollution level to 75 parts per billion. It has never met that standard and is considered in severe non-attainment, which means motorists pay for a more expensive blend of gasoline in the summer and more companies are required to apply for federal air pollution permits, which are more expensive and come with more regulations.

Colorado has also failed to meet the more stringent 2015 standard of 70 parts per billion. The EPA lists Colorado as in serious non-attainment for that standard. However, state officials last year asked the EPA to downgrade that status to severe ahead of schedule because the state does not expect to meet its next deadline for the 2015 standard.

The EPA uses a formula, based on average daily ozone readings, and calculates them over a three-year period to grade a region’s air quality, and Colorado is supposed to meet its next benchmark for the 2008 standard in early 2027. But the past three years of data indicate another failure could be coming.

However, Katherine Jenkins, a spokeswoman for the EPA’s Region 8, which includes Colorado, said a downgrade is not automatic under the Clean Air Act. There are only three regions in the United States — all in California — that are as being in extreme violation.

Colorado’s 2024 ozone season recorded 41 high ozone days, which was among the worst in a decade. Then a mild summer in 2025 gave regulators some hope because there were just 23 high ozone days, making it one of the better years on record.

But 2026, with its record-high average temperatures, nearly tripled the number of bad ozone days. Forty-two of those days exceeded the 75 parts per billion standard and 24 were above 70 parts per billion, data shows.

“It was a very difficult year,” Silverstein said. “We thought if we had clean data for this year for 75 parts per billion we could get into compliance.”

Solutions for lowering ozone pollution include reducing the cars and trucks on the roads by encouraging people to use public transportation and pushing more people to use electric vehicles; reducing emissions from oil and gas drilling and from other industries that pollute; and asking people to use electric lawn and garden equipment, Silverstein said.

At a news conference about poor air quality on Sept. 1, Torres said Colorado cannot expect help from the Trump administration in regulating polluters and called on state officials to do more to protect public health.

“Solutions are not coming from the federal government,” he said. “Rather, actions to weaken, delay and eliminate protective policies are putting the profit-driven interests of polluters above the health of everyday people, threatening to increase air pollution for Coloradans and people all across the country.”

Kirsten Schatz, an advocate for the , a consumer advocacy group, said the state’s leaders cannot ignore the pollution coming from tailpipes, oil and gas drilling, and gas-powered equipment.

“This summer has been a stark reminder that we have a homegrown air pollution problem that’s not going away on its own,” she said. “Our state leaders need to use all the solutions available to ensure our air is safe to breathe.”

Now Colorado regulators want to address — the structures often called smokestacks by the general public — after a recently published report found that the flames are the state’s most significant source of volatile organic compounds.

Those harmful chemicals contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, an ongoing problem along the Front Range that has pushed the region into violation of federal air quality standards. The compounds can also be hazardous to human health if breathed for extended periods or in highly concentrated levels.

“We’re looking at programs that would necessitate periodic reviews of how the facility’s operating their flares, in terms of what����ap being sent to them and what technologies are they using to minimize emissions from flaring, and then taking steps to implement process improvements,” said Jessica Ferko, the policy and planning director for .

Not only is the Suncor refinery Colorado’s largest polluter of volatile organic compounds the report released in April shows the Commerce City facility is in the state’s top 10 for releasing sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides. Those are all hazardous gases that contribute to global warming and are also harmful to humans who regularly breathe them or are exposed to intense levels within a short period of time, the report found.

The facility also fell within the top 50% of emissions nationally for a refinery of its size and age, according to , a North Carolina consulting firm that produced the report. The first refinery on that site was built in the 1930s.

“Broadly speaking, we see Suncor as a large source of pollution,” Ferko said.

The refinery report will become the foundation for an upcoming process to create new state rules directly aimed at Suncor and its ongoing pollution problems. The air pollution division is hosting a series of public meetings this month to and to listen to public concerns about the refinery. The will be held Saturday and Tuesday.

Colorado law sets up a formal but lengthy process for creating new air quality rules, and it could be nine months or longer before the acts. It would be even longer before any new regulations went into effect.

But the state’s regulators said they have heard from the public and understand there is demand to do more to bring Suncor into compliance. The report, which cost $190,506 to produce, was mandated by the Colorado General Assembly.

Suncor has not been involved in writing the report or developing new regulations. The company would have the opportunity to argue over proposed new rules once the Air Quality Control Commission starts considering new policies.

In an email to The Denver Post, a Suncor spokeswoman said the company has made significant investments in its Commerce City refinery to improve reliability, refining operations and environmental impact. She did not address the report’s findings or the upcoming plans for new regulations.

“We remain committed to continuous improvement, regulatory compliance and working with regulators and stakeholders to responsibly support Colorado consumers and Colorado’s energy needs,” Tara Weber of Suncor wrote in the email. “As Colorado’s only refining operations, our ability to remain competitive with out-of-state suppliers is essential to supporting local jobs, continuing investment in the facility and providing the fuels Coloradans rely on every day.”

In 2025, Suncor said it was prepared to spend $57 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at its Commerce City refinery.

Suncor, based in Calgary, Canada, operates , processing 103,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The refinery, located on the banks of Sand Creek, makes gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and asphalt, and it sells 95% of its products in Colorado.

The refinery is allowed to send pollutants into the air under its . But that permit limits how much of each particular pollutant can be released. Violations must be reported to the state.

Colorado has three active investigations into Suncor’s pollution violations, dating to July 2, 2024. However, no investigation has yet to be launched over possible 2026 violations, including the July 28 incident when giant flames shot from a smokestack, or a May 11 incident when black and yellow plumes billowed from the refinery.

In the July incident, Suncor reported that it had exceeded its limits for smoke, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide from 9:42 a.m. July 27 through 12:59 p.m. July 28, according to its notification to the state health department. The malfunction occurred at its Plant 1 main flare and  equipment that cooks crude oil at high temperatures and breaks it down into a usable substance.

Flares and cracking units are two pieces of equipment at the refinery that often malfunction and cause Suncor to violate its federal air permit standards, the refinery report found.

The air pollution division’s staff is looking into those incidents as part of its annual inspection, which is not finished, said Kate Malloy, a state health department spokeswoman. If any alleged violations are found, the department would issue a compliance advisory, which is an official notice of an investigation.

In a recent public meeting, multiple people complained that Suncor’s notifications about this summer’s flaring incidents came late and did not provide much information about what had caused the excessive smoke and whether they needed to take precautions.

Michael Ogletree, the state health department’s senior director of state air quality programs, said the division wants to address Suncor’s public notification system so the community is more informed when malfunctions happen at the refinery.

“We have heard a lot from the community about how we can increase transparency from the refinery,” Ogletree said.

The refinery report identified four pieces of equipment, including the flares, that cause the most pollution, and it offered ideas for new technology and best management practices used by other refineries to reduce pollution.

Excessive pollution is often released when refinery workers need to shut down and then restart operations, which often happens after a malfunction. Between 2022 and 2024, 175 of those events were reported, Ferko said during a Wednesday public meeting.

The state health department will likely propose a regulation that would require Suncor to hire an outside consultant to analyze repeated malfunctions within a certain time frame, or when they happen because the same piece of equipment fails, Ferko said.

The division’s regulators want the new rules to give enforcement staff more power to bring Suncor into compliance, Stefanie Shoup, deputy director of regulatory affairs for the Air Pollution Control Division, said the Wednesday meeting. They can only do so much under existing state and federal regulations.

“It gives them more weight,” Shoup said. “It gives them something they can grip into when they are pursuing enforcement.”

Re: “Suncor’s refinery emits black smoke,” July 29 news story.

Denver Post readers must know by now that one of the largest polluters on the Front Range is the Suncor Energy refinery. Colorado Air Quality has been sending out notices of poor air quality on the Front Range for weeks. Here is how the Wednesday Denver Post article described the 3 incidents so far in 2026: bright orange flames, plumes of black smoke, visible smoke, excessive smoke spewing thick black and yellow plumes.

Residents along the Front Range should not expect any resolution or punishment regarding the ongoing pollution anytime soon. In the past, fines have been so ridiculously small that Suncor is not deterred from future occurrences. Their excuse is that the flames are part of a flaring process to burn off excess gases or because of starting back up after maintenance.

We can expect many more days of very poor air quality when all they get is a hand slap.

Mariann Storck, Wheat Ridge

Mothers are too often left out

Re: “Wonder why the birthrate is falling? Look how we treat mothers,” Aug. 1 commentary.

Christine Michel Carter has written the truth about being a woman, whose only asset has been for millennia – of value left unpaid. I thought these things at age 16, and that was in 1954. Nature asks us to carry, deliver and nurse the child. The notion that the entire job is ours has been dumped on us by men, so they can have a life and get paid for it. This is changing, needless to say, and I hand it to all men who realize they have an important role in childcare. But we must support it with concrete measures that work. If you want a job in the workplace, you need a system that welcomes and accommodates you. This is not a world in which staying home is going to teach you. Women need to participate in all of life, in all its aspects.

This is a complex issue and cannot be ignored!

Anne M Culver, Denver

Access to care depends on Medicare fee schedule

When was the last time you saw a doctor? How long did you have to wait for an appointment? How far did you have to drive? For many Americans, accessing local care is becoming increasingly difficult.

As a physician, I want to treat all my patients as early as possible, when their conditions are more manageable and complications are more likely to be prevented. Longer wait times and fewer care options are frustrating for doctors and patients alike.

I’m especially worried about the federal government����ap projections that show a nationwide shortage of over 110,000 doctors by 2028. Unfortunately, systemic barriers are preventing physicians from entering the field, expanding their services, treating new Medicare beneficiaries, and opening offices in rural communities.

One major barrier: chronic cuts to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, which is a cornerstone for independent physician practices to stay afloat. Since 2001, Medicare physician reimbursement has declined when adjusted for inflation. With less and less payment, it����ap little wonder then that we’re seeing more doctors decide to leave medicine altogether.

Congress should instead tie future reimbursement updates to the rate of inflation. This is a straightforward way to ensure stability for small and independent physician practices, and doing so will go a long way to addressing the severe physician shortage and ultimately improve Americans’ access to care.

Liudmila Kastsianok, Aurora

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The company issued an alert at 10:01 a.m., Tuesday that said increased smoke may be visible at its Commerce City plant because of unit startup activities.

Bright orange flames rolled from a smokestack on the southwest corner of the refinery, and plumes of black smoke billowed upward. It was business as usual as semitrailers lined up to carry fuel across Colorado and beyond.

The flames are part of the refinery’s flaring process, which burns off excess gases to avoid dangerous buildups that could result in explosions.

On July 22, Suncor notified the public that it was conducting planned maintenance activities and that visible smoke would be possible for several days.

The company twice this spring generated public concern over excessive smoke spewing from the plant.

In May, thick, black and yellow plumes billowed from two smokestacks at the refinery after a power outage caused the three production plants to shut down.

And in April, the refinery shut down one plant because of a possible electrical issue, sending black smoke upward.

The refinery’s emissions increase whenever workers need to shut down or restart one of the three plants at the facility.

The lowest price reported in the Denver area was $4.29 in Littleton in the morning.

“But even that station’s likely to go up here soon,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, an app that helps drivers find the cheapest gas.

The highest price for gas on Monday in Colorado was $5.39 in Carbondale, De Haan said.

The Memorial Day weekend could add to the increases, according to GasBuddy.

De Haan attributed the string of $4.99 prices across the metro area to a tendency to follow the leader, both when prices go up and start dropping again.

The search for the best deals has gotten more challenging since the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran started Feb. 28. Oil prices began surging and exceeding $100 a barrel when Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz. About 20% of the world’s global oil supply flows through the strait.

Oil prices have increased as fighting and threats of more strikes have intensified and have dropped when negotiations and proposed agreements are announced.

“Oil markets don’t like turmoil, and turmoil raises risk,” said De Haan.

A recent temporary shutdown caused by a power outage at the Suncor Energy oil refinery in Commerce City also helped nudge up prices, De Haan said. Suncor is the only refinery in Colorado.

The lowest gas price on Sunday in the Denver area was $4.05 per gallon and the most expensive was $4.99, according to GasBuddy. The lowest price in the state was $3.99 a gallon while the highest was $6.29.

While steep, De Haan said $6.29 is about $2 below the highest prices in the country.

Average gasoline prices in Denver have risen 35.3 cents a gallon in the last week, according to GasBuddy’s survey of 844 stations. Prices in Denver are 80.6 cents higher than a month ago and $1.59 a gallon higher than a year ago, GasBuddy said.

Colorado AAA said the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in the state is $4.66, spokesman Skyler McKinley said.

“It is climbing. I anticipate tomorrow we’ll see a pretty steady jump up” ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, McKinley said.

McKinley recommended that people worried about gas prices should fill up before they head to the mountains.

“If you’re headed out for Memorial Day, you’re always going to find the best prices, the most competitive prices on the Front Range where there’s a ton of competition,” he said.

McKinley said drivers should avoid filling up on Interstate 70 or U.S. 285 if they can. “You’ll generally find cheaper prices at service stations that aren’t immediately adjacent to the highway.”

Asked about concerns over price-gouging, McKinley said, “Anyone who thinks that price-gouging is going on should walk into a convenience store at a gas station and ask how the margins work. Gas is a low-margin item.”

The Colorado Better Business Bureau said in an email that it has received only a handful of customer reviews and complaints about gas stations, but not necessarily regarding gas prices.

Oil companies have reported higher profits since the Iran war started. British oil giant BP said it more than doubled its profits in the first three months of this year over last year, TotalEnergies, based in Paris, raised its dividends and doubled its share buybacks after announcing $5.4 billion in net profits for the first quarter.

Suncor issued a community notification at 1:06 p.m. to report “increased smoke and flaring may be visible at Commerce City operations.” The notification said no emergency action was necessary and that toxic fumes were not detected by the refinery’s air monitoring network. People who live and work should not have experienced acute health problems, the company said in a statement.

The power outage happened after an Xcel Energy transmission line tripped, Lisa Anderson, an Xcel spokeswoman, said.

Xcel crews patrolled the line and did not find any faults and then alerted Suncor that employees could safely restart operations, Anderson said. Transmission lines can trip offline for a variety of reasons such as weather or equipment issues and those trips automatically shut off power to help keep people and the grid safe, she said.

No broader customer outages were reported.

Suncor officials reported the malfunction to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division and state regulators sent an inspector to the facility, said Kate Malloy, a CDPHE spokeswoman.

The air division’s meteorologists believe Monday’s wind conditions lifted the pollution away from the ground, Malloy said. But the state will continue monitoring the malfunction and will learn more as Suncor files its mandatory reports about the outage.

officials said the increased flaring would happen while workers restarted the equipment that had been shut down after the power outage.

Monday’s outage and ensuing smoke caused alarm throughout Commerce City.

Multiple people in Commerce City sent pictures and videos to The Denver Post that showed black and yellow plumes flowing from the refinery’s smokestacks. Flames were visible from multiple stacks.

Cultivando, a public health advocacy group in Adams County, criticized the emergency notification system for providing few details about what was happening even as smoke poured into the air.

Steve O’Dorisio, an Adams County commissioner who lives near the refinery, said he was taking pictures and videos of the black smoke and yellow plume when workers, who were not affiliated with Suncor, stopped to caution him about potential dangers associated with the fumes.

O’Dorisio has demanded for years more accountability for Suncor and its repeated air pollution violations. He said Monday’s billowing smoke was just one more example of failures to keep Suncor from exceeding its permitted levels of pollution, and he demanded that Suncor officials meet with Commerce City residents to explain why it continues to happen.

“You can say it’s an error, a mistake, an accident,” he said. “You know what also isn’t good? To say this is routine.”

On April 14, black smoke billowed from the Suncor refinery in Commerce City as the facility shut down one of its plants due to an electrical issue. Gusts of black smoke were visible for miles, and the incident led CDPHE to send an inspector to the site.

The company later filed a malfunction report with the state health department that listed multiple pollutants it released in excess of the amounts allowed in its air pollution permit. Those pollutants included carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, which also created more sulfur dioxide,

Flares at the refinery are used to burn off excess, combustible chemicals as a safety measure. The company is allowed to release visible smoke up to six minutes per hour, under the terms of its air permit.

Gusts of smoke from the Plant 2 main flare were visible for miles, leading the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to send an inspector to the site and the company to issue one of its public notifications about refinery activity.

On Wednesday, Suncor filed a malfunction report with the state health department that listed the pollutants that it released in excess of the allowable amounts in its air-pollution permit. The company also said the malfunction was ongoing, and that it continued to release higher levels of carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide, which also created more sulfur dioxide, according to the report.

The company also exceeded the amount of black smoke that it is allowed to spew into the sky, according to the report. The company’s Title V air permit limits visible smoke to six minutes per hour.

Kate Malloy, a spokeswoman for the state Air Pollution Control Division, said strong winds on Tuesday and Wednesday pushed the pollutants higher into the air and lessened the amount that people on the ground near the refinery would breathe.

Suncor informed on Tuesday the state’s Air Pollution Control Division of the problem and reported that the smoke potentially violated the terms of the company’s air-pollution permit, Malloy said.

The company also reported that it may have released too much carbon monoxide from its Plant 2 fluidized catalytic cracking unit, one of the main pieces of equipment used to convert crude oil into gasoline, she said.

Air-quality monitors around the refinery did not record elevated amounts of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide or particulate matter, Malloy said. Other toxics such as benzene, toluene, ethylene oxide and xylene also were below federal health standards.

However, ambient air concentrations at those monitors are different from flare emissions, which are released at higher altitudes than the monitors, which are placed along the borders of the Suncor property.

“We will continue monitoring the situation and air pollution levels in the area,” Malloy said.

Suncor did not respond to an email inquiry from The Denver Post.

The company’s notification, sent via email and phone calls to people who have subscribed to alerts, said increased smoke from the flare may be visible for several days as the plant undergoes maintenance that requires workers to shut down and restart equipment.

The refinery’s Plants 1 and 3 are also down for planned maintenance, Malloy said.

The refinery uses flaring to burn off excess gases to manage pressure within the equipment. When flaring occurs, passersby can see flames coming from smokestacks. However, black smoke is unusual.

“Flaring is a standard safety practice that allows for the controlled burning of process gases to safely manage pressure,” Suncor’s notification said. “We continuously monitor the air around our operations and provide air quality data and information with our neighbors and the public through near real-time community and fenceline monitoring systems.”