The U.S. Department of the Interior on Friday for the Colorado River that will guide how the basin’s two major reservoirs will operate and how the shrinking river’s water will be allocated across the southwest for the .

While Colorado and the other Upper Basin states — New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — will face no mandatory cuts, the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada will see their collective supply cut by 1.25 million acre-feet in each of the next two years. An acre-foot of water is enough water for two families’ annual needs.

During negotiations, leaders from the Lower Basin states offered to reduce their consumption, and the federal plan implements cuts of similar size. While the federal government has the authority to mandate cuts in the Lower Basin, it does not have similar power over the Upper Basin states, which sit above the river’s two major reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

The decision Friday is the culmination of years of negotiations, studies, public comment periods and modeling. Negotiators from the seven Colorado River basin states first set out to craft a plan to manage the critical waterway for decades. But the negotiators couldn’t agree on a plan, forcing the federal government to implement its own rules for the river.

Instead of a long-term operating plan as in the past, federal authorities created a 10-year framework that requires renegotiating the operating plans every two years, within parameters they set. The two-year plans will determine how much water is released from the river’s two major reservoirs and how deep cuts to water supplies will be for the three states downstream of those water storage banks.

If the states can find consensus on a longer-term plan, it can be substituted in at any point in the coming decade.

“We are grateful for the seven basin states, the 30 basin tribes, Mexico and many other basin stakeholders who have provided the feedback and voluntary arrangements necessary for the development of the 2027-2028 Operating Guidelines,” Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum said in a statement Friday. “Forty million people, millions of acres of farmland and ranchland, industries that power the American West, and some of our nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas depend on the Colorado River.”

In Colorado — where the river begins its snaking route toward the Gulf of California — the water is used for Western Slope agriculture as well as municipal water supplies across the state, including much of the Front Range. The Colorado River is also an engine for recreation in the state and provides critical habitat for wildlife, including endangered species.

The Department of the Interior on Friday also finalized the 10-year framework, which was first announced earlier this summer. The finalized document, called a record of decision, formally ends a planning process that began in 2022 to replace previous operating plans that expire this year.

“Today’s Record of Decision and two-year guidelines give the Colorado River some badly needed near-term certainty at a moment of extraordinary risk,” California’s top Colorado River negotiator, JB Hamby, said in a statement Friday.

The new plans come as the Colorado River system hovers on the brink of collapse. Long-term drought across the basin has dramatically sapped the river’s flow, while continued overuse of the basin’s stored water has depleted its two major reservoirs.

Lake Powell and Lake Mead sit at record lows not seen since the nation’s two largest reservoirs began filling decades ago. On Wednesday, .

Already this spring, water managers scrambled to send more water from upstream Flaming Gorge Reservoir to Lake Powell to keep its dam’s hydropower turbines running when the winter’s snowpack in the river’s headwaters yielded paltry streamflows. The reservoir could fall so low in early 2027 that water can no longer safely pass through the turbines’ intake tubes, a level called “power pool,”

The depleted reservoirs leave little margin for error in their operations this water year, which begins Oct. 1. Lake Powell will begin the water year very near power pool.

In the near-term, federal officials’ plans focus on keeping water levels at Lake Powell from falling below that level and building a buffer above it.

The two-year plan includes the possibility that water may be sent to Powell from smaller federally managed reservoirs in the Upper Basin, including Colorado’s Blue Mesa Reservoir.

The 10-year federal framework allows for cuts in the Lower Basin up to 3 million acre-feet a year, if needed in future two-year plans. That level of cuts has prompted threats of litigation from officials in Arizona, which would bear the brunt of those reductions. Such a lawsuit would likely end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, which would embroil the basin in years of uncertainty during the legal process.

Arizona’s top Colorado River negotiator, in a letter to federal officials, opposed the 10-year framework, the depth of possible cuts and the lack of mandatory cuts in the Upper Basin.

“Arizona does not accept a framework that gives the federal government the discretion to select from a wide range of alternatives — including catastrophic cuts to the Lower Basin — every two years for the next decade,” Tom Buschatzke wrote in the Aug. 10 letter,

While the plan for the next two years has been finalized, water managers across the basin will continue to negotiate operating guidelines for the next two-year period — or a more long-term strategy that all seven basin states agree upon.

Negotiations have stalled for years in part because the basin states cannot agree on who should bear the brunt of the water-use cuts made necessary by a shrinking river. Upper Basin states have said that they have never used their full legal allotment from the river and, because they are upstream of Lake Powell and Lake Mead, already take cuts every year depending on the amount of water in the river. Lower Basin states have demanded that Upper Basin states share in the pain.

At a Colorado water conference on Thursday, Colorado’s top negotiator Becky Mitchell reiterated her position that water rights owners in the Upper Basin states face cuts every year depending on the amount of water available. Powerful senior water rights that predate the 1922 Colorado River Compact are facing curtailment this year, she noted.

Colorado and the other Upper Basin states will continue working on a program that will pay water users to use less water and store that saved water for dry years, said Amy Ostdiek, chief of the interstate, federal and information section at the Colorado Water Conservation Board, while speaking at the same conference.

That water will then be available to send downstream in dry years and count toward the amount of water the Upper Basin sends to the Lower Basin, as required by the 1922 compact.

“We’re going to be part of the solution … but we can’t provide water certainty for our neighbors downstream that we ourselves don’t have,” she said.

Mitchell said she is still willing to negotiate a deal with the other basin states.

“I think we have to be honest with ourselves: Are we willing to get to a bad deal?” she said. “I am not.”

Nathan Matthews, a 43-year-old wildland firefighter from Lincoln, Neb., died Friday, nearly a month after he and four other firefighters were overtaken by flames near the Colorado-Utah state line, according to a .

“His bravery, and the bravery of his colleagues, is the reason that so many of our homes, communities and lands have been protected from the fires over the course of this season,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement. “Tragedies like this greatly impact all of the firefighters serving in Colorado and across the country, but know that you do not mourn alone.”

All five firefighters were working with the Rifle Helitack, an interagency firefighting crew based in Garfield County. The crew, including Matthews, was battling the Knowles fire on June 27 in western Colorado when it was caught in a burnover, federal officials said.

A burnover is when a wildfire overtakes firefighters or their equipment, leaving them no time to escape.

The group was trapped by rapidly spreading flames as two wildfires burning in eastern Utah — the Jones and Snyder Mesa fires — merged and consumed the Knowles and Gore fires on Colorado’s Western Slope, together forming the Snyder fire.

As of Saturday, the remained 98% contained, according to fire officials. The burn area is approximately 47 square miles, .

The five firefighters deployed their fire shelters. But three were killed and two were injured, U.S. Forest Service officials said.

Now, a fourth has died. An update on the fifth firefighter, whose identity has not been released publicly, was not immediately available Saturday.

Polis ordered flags to fly at half-staff in Colorado on the day of Matthews’ memorial, the date of which has not been announced.

The three firefighters initially killed in the burnover incident were identified as Emily Barker, 38; Nick Hutcherson, 27; and Sydney Watson, 27.

“This is another heartbreaking loss for our wildland fire family,” U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy said in a statement. “We mourn the loss of Nate while continuing to grieve the deaths of Emily, Nick and Sydney. Our hearts are with their families, friends, crewmates and everyone impacted by this tragedy.”

3 firefighters killed in Colorado remembered for their bravery as wildfires churn in the West

Another firefighter died this month after his helicopter crashed into the Silver Jack Reservoir in southwestern Gunnison County. Nicholas Dale, a 56-year-old fire aviation pilot from Sooke, British Columbia, died while fighting the Gold Mountain fire near Ouray.

The crash remains under investigation.

"And to all the firefighters who continue working day and night to protect our state, you have our immense gratitude," Polis stated.

Projections show that if dry conditions persist, Lake Powell’s water level could dip below a threshold called “minimum power pool” as soon as February. That’s the level below which water can no longer flow through the reservoir’s hydropower turbines.

Without intervention, the projections say, the lake will remain below the critical elevation for the foreseeable future.

The threat of Powell hitting that threshold — 3,490 feet in elevation — has hovered above federal water managers for months as the reservoir has continued to drop to record-low levels. In April, that they would send up to 1 million acre-feet of water from the upstream Flaming Gorge Reservoir to Powell and reduce the amount of water released from Powell to keep the reservoir’s level at 3,500 feet above sea level — which includes a small buffer Reclamation officials want to maintain to stay above the power pool level.

Powell’s water levels continue to drop as Colorado River leaders deal with two crises: one climatological and one political. Long-term drought fueled by climate change has shrunk the Colorado River’s flows as federal officials and water leaders in the seven basin states — including Colorado, home to its headwaters — struggle to agree on longer-term plans for the river’s management.

So far, they’ve failed to find agreement on how to divvy up the usage cuts necessary to adapt to lower flows that reduce the water supply for farmers and residents in a region that’s home to 40 million people.

When Lake Powell’s levels fall below minimum power pool, that means water can no longer flow through the intake tubes for ‘s hydropower facility, which is the primary method for moving water downstream from the reservoir in southern Utah.

Instead, water can move only through much smaller bypass tubes that, for years, have been considered unsafe for long-term use — though Reclamation officials now say they can be operated safely with continuous maintenance.

The bureau’s most recent projections, released Tuesday, show that the emergency measures taken this spring will only be a stopgap, unless extremely wet weather returns.

“We’re going to get to 3,500 of elevation (at Powell) this year, and we’re going to stay there for a while, unless we get snowmaggedon,” said , a senior fellow at the University of Colorado Law School. She previously served as the chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission and as assistant secretary for water and science at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The updated projections come on the heels of . It shows that a relatively dry year would crash the river’s water storage system. The two major reservoirs would then fall so low under such a scenario that they essentially would no longer be usable as water savings accounts.

Instead, water managers would be able to pass water downstream only as it flowed into the reservoirs.

“This would be an outcome with devastating consequences,” the five authors stated in the paper.

‘This cannot be allowed to happen’

Bureau of Reclamation officials have said they will operate Lake Mead and Lake Powell to keep their water levels from falling below critical elevations. The federal water managers aim to keep Powell at 3,500 feet or higher and Mead at 975 feet — water levels that allow water to continue flowing through the reservoirs’ hydropower facilities and farther downstream.

Protecting those reservoir levels means that all the water below those elevations is rendered essentially inaccessible, the study authors wrote.

“If you get to those levels and Reclamation won’t allow the reservoirs to go below those levels, it����ap like those reservoirs aren’t there,” Castle said.

Those levels are coming soon, according to the analysis.

Once underwater, Colorado River canyon country reemerges as drought-stricken Lake Powell’s levels drop

The study's authors looked at two potential hydrologies: a year that is moderately wet, with water use remaining relatively unchanged; and one that is moderately dry — though not as dry as this past year — and water use falls.

A moderately wet year would buy only a few years of buffer unless the seven Colorado River basin states substantially reduce their water use, according to the analysis.

Under moderately dry conditions, Powell's level would fall to 3,500 feet above sea level, and Mead's would likely fall to 975 feet shortly after.

Those low reservoir levels would leave water managers with no flexibility to move water to meet the needs of water users in the Lower Basin states: Arizona, California and Nevada.

A reduction in the amount of water flowing from Powell into Mead could cause legal uncertainty across the basin, since the 1922 Colorado River compact requires the Upper Basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Utah — to pass a certain amount of water downstream from Powell.

Falling reservoir levels at Lake Mead also pose a threat to hydropower capacity at Hoover Dam, which across the Southwest. According to the Bureau of Reclamation's projections, water levels in the Nevada reservoir are projected to fall so low by November that power generation would be cut by 70%. That's because 12 of the dam's 17 turbines are not designed to operate at water levels below 1,035 feet.

The bureau projects that water levels in Mead will recover for a few months before plunging downward again in March — and staying below the level needed to avoid severe cuts in power production until at least April 2028, when Reclamation's projections end.

The only way to halt the slump toward a system crash is to bring water use in line with supply, Castle said. Immediate, basinwide water cuts that are unprecedented in size are the only way to prepare for the potential of a relatively dry winter, the authors wrote in the analysis.

"The political incentives to fight for the most favorable outcomes for individual states and water users must be overcome by the necessity of preventing a Colorado River system crash, the consequences of which would be devastating for those same water users," the analysis concludes. "This cannot be allowed to happen."

Backup systems safe, officials say

There is a sliver of good news among the catastrophic forecasts.

If Lake Powell falls below minimum power pool, the only way to release water downstream is through four 8-foot-diameter tubes called the river outlet works. For years, Bureau of Reclamation officials have said the tubes were not designed for long-term use at low water levels, and such use could cause structural damage to the dam.

But officials now say there's a way to safely use the river outlet works, if needed.

Recent studies of the river outlet works have shown that managers can operate the backup tubes continuously in a safe way, said Katrina Grantz, the deputy regional director for Reclamation’s Upper Colorado Region, at a conference in Boulder earlier this month. But the outlets require frequent inspections and maintenance when used continuously, which means that one of the four conduits will routinely be offline.

Over the course of a year, the maintenance rotation will result in an effective capacity of about three and a half outlets operating continuously, bureau spokesman Peter Soeth wrote in an email in response to follow-up questions from The Denver Post.

"The river outlet works were never designed to serve as the primary or long‑term release pathway," Soeth said. "Relying on them continuously would reduce operational flexibility and, over extended periods, could introduce wear that requires more intensive maintenance."

The bureau is studying ways to modify Glen Canyon Dam to deliver water and hydropower once the reservoir's water level drops below minimum power pool, Soeth said.

But any changes would not help in the immediate future — the first round of design appraisals and cost estimates won't be finished until 2027.

Yearslong discussions about how to split the river’s shrinking water supply, which is relied upon by 40 million people, remained deadlocked as the Saturday deadline for a final deal came and went. It was a deadline set by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The seven basin states are split into two factions that have not agreed on how to divvy up cuts to water supplies in dry years. The Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada lie downstream of Lakes Powell and Mead and rely on releases from those reservoirs for water. The Upper Basin states — Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico — are upstream of the reservoirs and primarily depend on mountain snowpack for their water supplies.

Leaders from each basin pointed fingers at the other as the deadline passed.

Lower Basin negotiators have repeatedly said that Upper Basin states must “share the pain” and take mandatory cuts in dry years, which have become increasingly common in recent decades. But the Upper Basin states say their water users already take cuts every year because their supplies depend on the amount of water available and are not propped up by supplies in Lakes Powell and Mead.

Repeated overuse in the Lower Basin has drained the two reservoirs, they’ve argued.

“We’re being asked to solve a problem we didn’t create with water we don’t have,” Colorado’s negotiator, Becky Mitchell, said in a statement Friday. “The Upper Division’s approach is aligned with hydrologic reality and we’re ready to move forward.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said he was disappointed in the state of negotiations, especially after the Upper Basin states recently offered a revised proposal to the Lower Basin.

“The Lower Basin rejected that plan, did not offer an alternate proposal, and walked away from the table before the deadline,” Weiser said in a statement.

The Lower Basin states have put significant cuts to their water supplies on the table but cannot agree to a plan that lacks mandatory cuts in the Upper Basin, Arizona’s negotiator Tom Buschatzke said in a statement. The Lower Basin’s proposals “fell on deaf ears in the Upper Basin,” he said.

“We simply cannot take on the task of saving this precious river system on our own,” Buschatzke said.

As political leaders unleashed a series of pointed statements Friday, the Bureau of Reclamation that show one of the river system’s major reservoirs could be in peril as soon as this summer.

The bureau’s new projections show that, if drought conditions remain dire, Lake Powell could fall so low by the end of July that water would no longer flow through Glen Canyon Dam’s hydropower system — a level called “dead pool.” Even if snow conditions improve, the reservoir could still reach dead pool in November — a scenario the bureau dubbed its most probable outcome.

The , an agency created by the Colorado legislature that����ap based in Glenwood Springs and advocates for Western Slope water needs, said it was disappointing that Lower Basin negotiators walked away from discussions on the day the projections were released.

“With Lake Powell now quickly approaching dead pool, that decision reflects a continued disconnect from hydrologic reality and a clear refusal to confront the core problem: longstanding Lower Basin overuse,” the district said Monday in a statement.

Snowpack across the mountains that feed the Colorado River remained dismal in early February.

Above Lake Powell, snowpack on Feb. 1 sat at 47% of the median recorded for that time of year between 1991 and 2020. The water year — which began Oct. 1 — has so far featured record-setting warmth and limited precipitation, Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.

That could translate to water supplies at 38% of normal, according to the center. Current projections show inflow into Lake Powell will total a meager 2.4 million acre-feet — far less than the 7.5 million acre-feet allocated to the Lower Basin in the 

“This winter’s alarmingly low snowpack across Colorado adds an exclamation point to the already dire drought in the Basin,” Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper said in a statement. “If we don’t address this problem together — head-on and fast — our communities, farms, and economies will suffer.”

Federal officials under both the Trump and Biden administrations have repeatedly set deadlines by which the states must find agreement. But now, with only months before the current guidelines expire, time is truly running out.

“We are increasingly concerned that, after more than two years of negotiations, multiple deadlines, and extensive public engagement, the Basin states have still not reached agreement on a Colorado River management framework,” said a new statement issued by a coalition of conservation groups. It includes the Environmental Defense Fund, the Nature Conservancy and Western Resource Advocates.

Federal officials have repeatedly said they will finalize a plan before the Oct. 1 start of the next water year. The Bureau of Reclamation in January published outlines of the plans officials are considering. ends March 2.

Without a deal between the states, the bureau will implement its own plan — a move that will likely set off costly litigation that takes years to resolve.

“Colorado is prepared for any litigation, and we will work tirelessly to protect our state’s rights and interests under the Law of the Colorado River,” Weiser said.

Leaders from both the Upper and Lower basins pledged to continue working on a deal.

“We can and we must rise to this occasion,” the governors of the four Upper Basin states, including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, said in a joint statement.

The note on “Void if Altered” rules says that stickers, coverings, or other alterations could make the pass useless. The internal email detailing the changes, which was obtained and first reported , appears to have been prompted by a Boulder artist’s popular stickers that were offered as alternatives for the new design.

Trump’s face is set to adorn the American the Beautiful parks pass, alongside George Washington, starting Jan. 1. A new, internal email from department business specialists Allison Christofis and Jeff Beauchamp to regional National Park Service staff specifically mentions stickers on the front of the pass, SF Gate said.

“Defacing the pass in any way, including writing on it or adding stickers or other coverings, is a form of altering the pass,” the policy reportedly reads. “Altering a pass can cover up important information and required security features necessary to prevent fraud.”

The Denver Post was not immediately able to verify the document. (We will update this story if the department responds.)

McCarty, who’s already gotten orders for nearly 8,000 stickers, said the new guidance should be posted publicly if it becomes official park policy.

“At the end of the day the goal (of the stickers) is not to make life harder for rangers, because they’ve already got it hard enough right now,” she told The Denver Post on Tuesday. “But you would think if these were the new rules, they’d post them where you can read them, instead of having people just showing up to a national park and potentially being turned away for something they’ve already paid for.”

A public lands group, the Center for Biological Diversity, last month filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department over the design of the new park passes, saying physical changes violate an act that relies on an annual photo contest that is supposed to determine the images — and to highlight nature over people.

McCarty is selling her stickers through her ach, and since launching on Dec. 10, she’s been struggling to fill thousands of orders that have arrived. With “every dollar” going to the National Park Foundation, the vinyl, full-color stickers depict McCarty’s paintings of a brown bear against a verdant field and Denali’s mountain majesty; a furry pika — a much-loved resident of Rocky Mountain National Park — with a flower in its teeth; and a wolf howling majestically against the Grand Tetons.

“I’m just one person in this, and it couldn’t have happened without many people,” she told The Denver Post last month. “I’m blown away by the number of people who see this as a chance to use their voice and choose things they want to see. The National Parks are our lands and every single one of us owns them. … I get so much joy from art and the National Parks, and this has been a great way to combine my passions.”

However, McCarty explicitly warns that covering Trump’s face completely — despite being a “bold, peaceful protest” — is at your own risk. Using a clear card sleeve, with the sticker on the front and the details showing on the back, is “most cautious.”

Or, if you cover most of it, her stickers “have backing in sections so you can leave some on and lift to show the pass underneath,” .

Delivery time for McCarty’s stickers is currently running about four weeks due to “experiencing a high volume of orders and fulfilling them with the help of volunteers,” according to McCarty’s website.

Environmental groups have repeatedly raised objections in the past year to the White House’s drive to open National Parks to oil drilling, road-building and other development, as well as laying off employees and cutting budgets.

In June, a nonpartisan U.S. Senate rulekeeper blocked Republican-backed public land sales of more than 14 million acres in Colorado that were eligible as part of a larger Western lands provision. A budget bill had called for the sale of between 0.5% and 0.75% of the 438 million acres managed by the BLM and USFS, The Denver Post has reported.

This story was updated at 11:40 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 6, to include comments from Boulder artist Jenny McCarty.

“With the design that came out for the 2026 National Parks passes, they took away people’s ability to vote on the photographs they love most,” said McCarty, a Boulder water-resource manager who’s been painting images of nature ever since attending Clear Creek High School in Evergreen. “These stickers are a way to celebrate our democracy and the ability for people to choose.”

McCarty — who paints striking, watercolor nature scenes with intricate textures and vibrant colors — created her own stickers that neatly cover images of President Donald , the new designs for which were unveiled just last month.

She objects not only to the politically driven imagery, which places Trump’s face side-by-side with George Washington in the center of some cards, but also the larger cuts and threats to America’s 400-plus national parks, monuments and other properties. She’s not the only one. This month, a public lands group, the Center for Biological Diversity, over the design of the new park passes, saying physical changes violate an act that relies on an annual photo contest that is supposed to determine the images — and to highlight nature over people.

McCarty is selling her stickers through her Sage Leaf Studio website , and since launching on Dec. 10, she’s been struggling to fill the more than 1,000 orders that have arrived. With “every dollar” going to the National Park Foundation, depict 34-year-old McCarty’s paintings of a brown bear against a verdant field and Denali’s mountain majesty; a furry pika — a much-loved resident of Rocky Mountain National Park — with a flower in its teeth; and a wolf howling majestically against the Grand Tetons.

She’s heard directly from dozens of people that her project has given them a channel for peaceful protest in the face of alarming federal policy changes toward public lands. The Colorado native’s own experience started with frequenting national parks with her father while growing up — she believes she’s named after Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming — and living and working around them in Wyoming, Montana and elsewhere. (The avid hiker and camper dubbed Rocky Mountain National Park her “home park.”)

A California sticker manufacturer and former park ranger has offered to take on printing duties if McCarty becomes overwhelmed, she said, and others have reached out with various offers of support. As of this week, however, she has not heard from the NPS or any other governmental agency about her artistic civil disobedience. She added that if park rangers won’t accept the sticker-covered pass, people can simply apply the stickers to a clear credit card holder.

McCarty this week of the stickers, with labels for Senior and Military passholders in addition to the standard Resident passes, based on feedback and her drive to make the stickers accessible to all. She’s getting overwhelmed with messages via her website and , she said. And that’s a good problem to have.

“I’m just one person in this, and it couldn’t have happened without many people,” she said. “I’m blown away by the number of people who see this as a chance to use their voice and choose things they want to see. The National Parks are our lands and every single one of us owns them. … I get so much joy from art and the National Parks, and this has been a great way to combine my passions.”

Environmental groups have repeatedly raised objections in the past year to the White House’s drive to open National Parks to oil drilling, road-building and other development, as well as laying off employees and cutting budgets.

In June, a nonpartisan U.S. Senate rulekeeper blocked Republican-backed public land sales of more than 14 million acres in Colorado that were eligible as part of a larger Western lands provision. A budget bill had called for the sale of between 0.5% and 0.75% of the 438 million acres managed by the BLM and USFS, The Denver Post has reported.

The new “America-first” fee for foreign visitors comes as the federal government has ramped up mass deportations and as initial data has showed tourism in Colorado — both in terms of revenue and jobs — has flattened since 2023.��

“President Trump’s leadership always puts American families first,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in a statement. “These policies ensure that U.S. taxpayers, who already support the National Park System, continue to enjoy affordable access, while international visitors contribute their fair share to maintaining and improving our parks for future generations.”

Currently, it costs between $15 and $35 for anyone — U.S. resident or foreign tourist — to enter Rocky Mountain National Park, which received 4.1 million visitors in 2024.

“Colorado stepped up to manage (Rocky Mountain National Park) and keep it open during the federal shutdown because our National Parks support our rural and tourism economies,” said Alissa Johnson, spokesperson for the state , in a statement. “The State would be concerned about any negative economic impacts to our national parks and public lands brought on by this federal change. We will be monitoring the implementation of this federal decision and its impacts.”

International tourists will have to pay the surcharge when visiting 11 of the most visited parks in the U.S., including Rocky Mountain National Park, , and according to the .

Starting Jan. 1, foreign visitors will also pay more than U.S. residents for annual passes to the country’s national parks. International tourists will have to pay $250, whereas residents will pay $80, according to the .

The money made off the new fees will help support the national parks, including upgrades to facilities for visitors and maintenance, according to the statement.

The new fee follows a July executive order in which President Trump directed the parks to increase entry fees for foreign tourists.

“There’s a lot to unpack in this announcement, including many questions on its implementation – all which NPCA will raise with the Department of Interior,” Kati Schmidt, a spokesperson for National Parks Conservation Association, said in an email to the Associated Press.

The U.S. Travel Association estimated that in 2018, national parks and monuments saw more than 14 million international visitors.

The agency will also make it free for U.S. residents to visit national parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park, on seven specific days in 2026, including Memorial Day on May 25, Flag Day/President Donald Trump’s birthday on June 14, Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday on Oct. 27 and Veterans Day on Nov. 11, according to the news release.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump’s administration had just placed more than 50 Colorado cities and counties on a list of that, it claimed, were “deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws and endangering American citizens.” Their inclusion on the list shocked some local officials and sent them scrambling — since many hadn’t passed pro-immigrant policies or ordinances.

Jeff Small, a consultant for the 76 Group, a prominent Denver-based conservative public affairs firm, offered a way out. In emails to the elected leaders of at least five Colorado counties on the list, Small quoted media reports about targeted counties losing millions of dollars in grant funding.

For a “one-time low payment,” he wrote on May 31, he could use his expertise and “extensive relationships” with the White House and federal law enforcement agencies to “swiftly” get the counties off the list.

The pitch went to commissioners in at least Jefferson and Arapahoe counties in suburban Denver, as well as Clear Creek, Gunnison and Chaffee counties in the mountains. The offer shocked and confused the commissioners who received it, six of them told The Denver Post on Thursday.

All said they’d never received an email like it during their time in office. Three of them likened it to a shakedown.

“I’ve been in elected office for almost 20 years now, between the legislature and this,” said Andy Kerr, . “When I received this email, I was floored. Flabbergasted. I saw it as the single most corrupt shakedown attempt that I’ve ever experienced, personally, in Colorado politics.”

Leslie Summey, the chair of , said she took the email to be Small’s attempt “to get some money, and he has figured out this new niche to get it.” Jeffco Commissioner Rachel Zenzinger thought it was “a shakedown or fraud or a joke.”

None of those who spoke with The Post accepted Small’s offer, and it’s unclear how much he intended to charge. His pitch to the five counties — where Democrats either occupy all the commissioner seats or have a board majority — soon became a moot point: shortly after it was released.

In a statement early Thursday evening, Small said that after the jurisdiction list was published, he “moved quickly to help get two Colorado counties removed and attempted to help others before the list was taken down on June 1st. With hundreds of millions in federal grants potentially at risk for Colorado counties, I wanted to help.”

In a follow-up text, he said he’d helped remove El Paso and Weld counties from the list shortly after it was released.

Jennifer Finch, a spokeswoman for Weld County, said in an email Friday that the county commissioners were “not aware of work Jeff may have done on this topic.” One commissioner said he’d received a text from Small about the list, but that was only after U.S. Reps. Lauren Boebert and Gabe Evans had contacted the board and let them know the county had been removed.

In a statement early Friday evening, El Paso County spokeswoman Natalie Sosa disputed Small’s characterization of his help to the county as “blatantly false.”

“While Jeff Small attempted to contact one Commissioner, no member of this Board directed Jeff Small to take any action regarding El Paso County’s removal from the sanctuary jurisdiction list. El Paso County did not request, receive, or process any payments related to this issue,” Sosa wrote.

As for the shakedown allegations, Small said in another statement that he was “sorry anyone felt that way. That definitely was not my intention. I tried to help three counties pro bono.”

Consultant, claiming White House backing, called Colorado clerks to gain access to voting machines

Details of Small's offer to the commissioners surfaced soon after several election officials told The Post in recent days that he had reached out to Republican county clerks last week. Small sought third-party access to voting equipment on behalf of the White House and as part of a Trump executive order seeking to overhaul elections.

Like their commissioner colleagues several weeks before, the clerks were taken aback by Small's outreach, and none agreed to his request.

Small, who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, joined the 76 Group, a Colorado consulting and lobbying firm, earlier this year. He was previously chief of staff for Boebert of Colorado and had been appointed to the U.S. Department of the Interior during Trump's first administration.

Josh Penry, the 76 Group's founder, referred a comment request to Small.

Small sent the emails on May 31, two days after the Department of Homeland Security published the list of targeted cities and counties.

His email, some of the commissioners said, seemed to suggest that he had influence over the list's contents before it was publicly unveiled. He wrote that he'd already prevented current "county clients" from ending up on the list and that he'd also "successfully helped remove multiple other counties."

"It seemed like Mr. Small had more time to think about the sanctuary list and the executive order attached to it than I had," said Commissioner George Marlin of . "It����ap not the way that government-to-government relations usually works."

, Small began lobbying on behalf of Douglas and Mesa counties nearly three months before the jurisdiction list was published. Neither of those counties was on the list, though both had resolutions .

Boebert told The Post in late May that she'd successfully removed Douglas County from the list prior to its publication.

Small said he was involved in keeping the two counties off the list, too.

"I didn't control the decision and I never saw a preview of the list -- but I made the case for those counties," he wrote in a text to The Post.

Abe Laydon, the chair of , did not return a voicemail seeking comment Thursday. On Friday morning, a spokeswoman for Mesa County government said she was not immediately able to comment. She also directed The Post to file a public records request.

For those counties that stayed on the list during its short life, its makeup befuddled some commissioners, who didn't understand why they were included. Kristin Stephens, a commissioner in Larimer County who didn't receive Small's email, said she and her colleagues had been surprised to see their county on it.

But, she said, she learned through word of mouth how they might get Larimer removed.

"My understanding was that counties on the list were counties that hadn't done a resolution to say they weren't a sanctuary county or city," Stephens said. "But I also understood that if you called the right person and your county was of the right persuasion, you could get off the list."

Zenzinger said she and her colleagues in Jeffco dismissed Small's email after the list was rescinded. But word had spread among other county commissioners. Routt County Commissioner Sonja Macys, who didn't receive Small's email but heard about it, laughed when asked about it this week by The Post.

"Oh, that guy," she said. "The one that's going to get you off the list?"

At least 10 Republican clerks were contacted by consultant Jeff Small, officials said Wednesday. Small, who has Colorado political connections, told the clerks that he was working on the project for the White House and the U.S. departments of Justice and Homeland Security, and he said he wanted the clerks to let an outside party access voting equipment to identify “gaps.”

He also requested access because President Donald Trump’s administration was frustrated with the slow rollout of an executive order issued earlier this year. Trump’s order sought greater federal control over elections, though a federal court last month .

All of the clerks contacted by Small rejected the request, election officials said. Unauthorized access to voting equipment is illegal under state law — and for some clerks, the request immediately prompted thoughts that it amounted to the type of conduct that sank former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who’s now serving a prison sentence.

“I’m sitting here going, ‘There’s a person spending nine years in prison here in Colorado for doing the exact same thing,’ ” said Steve Schleiker, the clerk and recorder in El Paso County.

Small connected Schleiker with a Homeland Security official, who sought access that Schleiker likened to hacking into voting equipment.

Justin Grantham, the clerk and recorder in Fremont County, said Small called him July 9 and was “looking for Republican clerks in Democratic states that would be willing to work with the White House and the Department of Justice, for bringing a third party to evaluate the security” of voting equipment.

All of the clerks contacted use Dominion Voting Systems voting machines, said Matt Crane, the executive director of . Dominion has been the target of extensive — and repeatedly debunked — claims of interfering with the 2020 election, which Trump lost.

Small also works for , a prominent conservative public affairs firm based in Denver, and earlier was the chief of staff for Colorado’s U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert. His calls to the clerks were Wednesday morning by the Washington Post.

In a statement to The Denver Post, Small said Wednesday that he was approached by “officials working on the President’s executive order to improve election security,” and they asked him “to connect them with a few local county clerks to get their input on this important effort.”

He was happy to do so, he said, because of Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s “security debacles.” He said he was not paid for the outreach, calling it a “volunteer connection effort” that he did in his spare time.

Small declined to answer follow-up questions by phone and did not immediately respond to written questions.

The effort alarmed election officials, and in a letter sent to clerks last week, Crane said that no one had complied with the request. He noted that “inviting a third party to examine a Colorado voting system is a violation of state law.”

In an interview, Griswold said that, to her knowledge, no one had contacted Republican clerks in any other Democratic state seeking similar access. The Department of Justice had previously sent Griswold’s office a request for extensive voting data, also unique among states.

Griswold, a Democrat and the state’s top election official, said anyone seeking access to equipment must get clearance, including through a background check, and they must agree to several security protocols.

“It could lead to a felony conviction and imprisonment,” she said of Small’s request for third-party access. “That����ap where unauthorized access to voting equipment leads. It leads to counties, where that happens, having to spend a lot of money to replace their voting equipment and face potential criminal liability.”

Before working for Boebert, Small was appointed by Trump to work in the U.S. Department of the Interior. He joined the 76 Group earlier this year, .

Small is also a registered federal lobbyist whose clients include four Colorado counties — including at least one that he contacted as part of his quest for access to election equipment.

Boebert’s office did not return a message seeking comment. Nor did Josh Penry, the head of the 76 Group. Natalie Baldassarre, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, declined to comment. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson referred questions about Small to the Department of Homeland Security.

In a statement, an unnamed spokesperson for Homeland Security said that the agency daily “works with our local partners to make sure our elections remain safe. We don’t disclose every single conversation we have with them.”

Schleiker said Small called him July 9. They spoke briefly, and Small complimented El Paso County on its election integrity efforts. With Schleiker’s permission, Small gave the clerk’s phone number to an official from , which is part of Homeland Security. That official then called, “looking for partners to test the election voting equipment to see if there’s any gaps.”

“I was like, ‘Oh,’ ” Schleiker said. The federal government has no jurisdiction over local voting equipment, he said, and he told the official to call the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office or the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

“El Paso County is in a very unique position because we’re the most populous county, we have the most active voters — we’re just shy of 511,000 active voters — so the most in the state, and we’re still considered pretty conservative,” Schleiker said. “And with this administration — (it was likely a matter of) ‘Hey, let����ap reach out to the largest and most conservative county,’ which is El Paso.

“But the thing is: No. Uh-uh. Not at all. ”

However, in a call that same day, Small told Grantham, in Fremont County, that El Paso County had agreed to provide access to equipment, Grantham said.

“I knew (El Paso County was) not on board, but what he told me was they’re on board — like, if one goes, all should go,” Grantham said. “I knew better.”

Crane, the head of the clerks association, said clerks began calling him about Small’s outreach last week. Crane said Small told some clerks that he was working on behalf of Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and a prominent booster of Trump’s false claims of election fraud. Dominion was also mentioned in one of the calls, Crane said.

Grantham said he suspected that the administration might have thought other Republican clerks in Colorado shared Peters’ beliefs and could be willing to grant access to voting equipment.

But clerks have been “resolute” in refusing Small’s request, Crane said.

“I’m not aware of anything in federal law that would give them the ability to do this,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it����ap the greatest cyber ninjas or some guy in a basement — or the federal government. If they don’t have a legal reason to be near these systems, they’re not getting near these systems.”

Kathleen Sgamma, the president of a Denver-based oil and gas trade association called the , withdrew her consideration to lead the Bureau of Land Management, Senator Mike Lee said during the beginning of a  that would have considered her nomination.

Lee, the chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said White House officials informed him of the change early Thursday morning.

Trump nominated Sgamma, a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s energy and public land policies, for the position in February.

She previously called the volume of leases issued on federal lands under the Biden administration “ridiculously low” and praised one of Trump’s first executive orders of his second term that aimed to boost oil and gas production on public lands.

“It was an honor to be nominated by President Trump as Director of the Bureau of Land Management, but unfortunately at this time I need to withdraw my nomination,” Sgamma said in a statement shared by a White House spokesperson with The Denver Post.��“I will continue to support President Trump and fight for his agenda to Unleash American Energy in the private sector.”

Sgamma did not return a voicemail seeking further information.

White House spokesperson Liz Huston said in an email to the Post that the administration accepted Sgamma’s withdrawal and looks forward to putting forth another nominee.

The controls about 245 million acres of land, 700 million acres of subsurface and 30% of the country’s minerals, according to the agency. The lands have multiple uses, including energy development, mining, livestock grazing and conservation.

In Colorado, three national conservation areas, five wilderness areas, two national monuments and 53 wilderness study areas across a combined 8.3 million acres are all controlled by the agency.

The reason for Sgamma’s withdrawal remains unknown, but her criticism of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol surfaced in recent days.

On Tuesday, an investigative journalism project known as released a Sgamma sent to oil executives detailing her “disgust” for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capital and “President Trump’s role in spreading misinformation that incited it.”

“We must listen and accept others whom we disagree with, even when they don’t return that respect,” she wrote. “We must stick to our nation’s founding principles of the sanctity and rights of every individual, even as many forces are undermining those basic principles.”

She ended the letter by wishing then-President-elect Joe Biden “the best of luck in his goal to return to normalcy and moderation.”

The former interior secretary under Trump, David Bernhardt, said her withdrawal was “self-inflicted,” and included a link to the website that posted her 2021 comments, according to . Bernhardt suggested that people whose views don’t align with Trump’s should not seek political appointments.

Officials with the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation group, and the Center for Biological Diversity, a national nonprofit based on environment advocacy, applauded the withdrawal.

The Center for Western Priorities’ Deputy Director Aaron Weiss told the Associated Press that Sgamma’s withdrawal underscored the Trump administration’s creation of a “loyalty test” to weed out subordinates who are out of step with him.

He said she had refused to publicly disclose the Western Energy Alliance’s members, preventing journalists and activists from identifying her potential conflicts of interest if confirmed to lead the BLM.

“Good riddance to Sgamma, whose withdrawal is good news for America’s public lands and imperiled animals,” Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity said. “There’s no doubt that Trump’s next nominee will also be a poisonous threat to our wildlife and wild places, but this speedbump gives senators a chance to ponder whether they really want to feed America’s public lands and monuments into the snapping jaws of the fracking and mining industries.”

Sgamma helped author the energy policy section of Project 2025, a policy document from conservative thinkers outlining proposed goals for Trump’s second term. The section she contributed to criticized the Biden administration for waging a “war on fossil fuels” and proposed maximizing oil and gas leasing across the country.

Sgamma joined the Western Energy Alliance in 2006. Before that, she worked 11 years in the information technology sector and three years as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army.

Sgamma was the second Coloradan to be nominated by Trump to lead a federal agency. Chris Wright, formerly CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, was previously confirmed as head of the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.