General Summary - March 4, 2022

The 2024 legislative session began on Wednesday, January 10. It is expected that this session will be overshadowed by a tense political environment. Over the interim, members of the majority party sued leadership, and during the special session we saw a breakdown in decorum and political tensions flared. Further, 2024 will be an election year, so legislators will engage in a lot of political posturing to win elections. We anticipate a divisive environment under the gold dome. Issues that will generate a lot of debate include renewed conversations on property tax. The special session did provide property tax relief, but is it temporary. The legislature created a Property Tax Task Force during the special session to recommend long-term solutions; they are instructed to report back to the legislature by March 15. We also expect land use policy and affordable housing to be hot topics after Governor Polis’ large land use bill was defeated last year. We will see multiple bills introduced aimed at pushing for more density and funding for transit projects. The legislature will also propose to expand the affordable housing tax credit and pass real estate transfer fee bill as ways to increase affordable housing stock. The Polis administration is preparing to release the first Climate Preparedness Roadmap which will lay out action steps and efforts to reduce greenhouse gases in various sectors, including the agriculture sector. We will likely see climate policies aimed at improving air quality and shifting to more electrification play out this session. Colorado legislators will face a much more constrained budget and thus bills that have a General Fund fiscal impact will face increased scrutiny. Consequently, we will likely see many bills introduced that create or extend tax credits for certain sectors and industries to reduce the TABOR revenue cap instead of requiring new General Fund appropriations. Because of this, the Department of Agriculture is running legislation to create tax credits for agriculture producers to implement practices with environmental benefits, leasing or selling agriculture assets to beginning farmers, and incentivizing veterinarians to practice in rural areas.  An issue of importance will be the reintroduction of a pesticide bill that will grant local governments the ability to regulate the sale and use of pesticides. This year, agriculture is exempt; however, what actually falls under that exemption is unknown. Further, this draft includes the sale of pesticides, which is something we have not seen in the past. Once introduced, the bill will be opposed by many groups and the large coalition, Coloradans for Responsibility Pesticide Application, even though the major industries are exempt – agriculture, marijuana, water, and utilities. The coalition has been able to push back against this legislation every year, and we are hoping for the same this year. More information to come!

We have less than 30 days left in this legislative session and the legislature had a shortened week due to taking off for Good Friday. This week the legislature closed out the Long Bill. The Governor will now have 10 days to sign it. Some highlights of the Long Bill and associated budget package include: · $180 million buy-down of the Budget Stabilization factor · $80 million for special education · $10 million in rural economic development · $6.8 million for Department of Public Safety investigators and local law enforcement assistance · $54 million in behavioral health community programs · $43.4 million to improve air quality · $58.5 million for home and community-based services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities Outside of the budget, the Senate debated HB 22-1295. This bill creates the new Department of Early Childhood and houses the universal pre-kindergarten program. Despite concerns from counties and education groups, the bill is moving forward with few changes from the task force report released last fall. Meanwhile, the House discussed a bill that increases penalties for fentanyl possession and distribution. The intent of the bill is to prevent fentanyl use and provide rehabilitation to those that need it. The bill provides resources for mandatory treatment as well as an awareness campaign. The bill had two days of robust testimony and debate, and passed its first hearing on Wednesday. Bills are still being introduced and this week there is a focus on youth services for foster care, runaway services, and mental health. We currently have 637 bills still outstanding. We expect the next three weeks to be long – over 150 bills have yet to be debated in a second chamber and this will lead to many debates and prioritization of bills in both chambers.

We have less than five weeks left in this legislative session. The budget passed the House last week and the Senate debated the bill (HB 22-1329) this week. The bill had its final vote on Thursday and passed the Senate (22-12). Now that it has passed both chambers, it will go to conference committee and will then go to the Governor’s desk for his signature. We continue to see bills introduced that would allocate federal stimulus dollars. SB 22-200 provides grants to modernize technology for rural health care providers; HB 22-1364 allocates dollars to food pantries; and HB 22-1356 provides grants for small community-based non-profits. Two bills with opposition from various industries (business, agriculture, manufacturing, etc.) had lengthy committee hearings this week. The first- HB 22-1244 (Public Protections from Toxic Air Contaminants Air Toxins) - creates a new program within CDPHE to regulate toxic air contaminants. The second- HB 22-1355 (Producer Responsibility Program for Recycling) - would shift the cost of recycling programs from local governments to the producers of recycled materials and thus help increase recycling rates. We also have several bills that focus on the oil and gas industry – SB 22-198 Orphaned Oil & Gas Wells Enterprise; HB 22-1348 Oversight of Chemicals Used in Oil & Gas; and HB 22-1361 Oil & Gas Reporting. Seen as a victory for the business community, we heard this week that the legislature will not consider a bill proposed last year called the POWR Act. This bill addresses workplace harassment issues. The fate of a collective bargaining bill is still unknown.

The big news this week is the finalization of the Long Bill - which will be introduced in the House on Monday. Other legislative business will mostly pause while the House debates the budget (week of March 28) and then the Senate (week of April 4). We will have a brief summary of some of the major budget decisions in our next report. A bill that has received a lot of press – HB 22-1152, prohibiting employers from taking adverse action against employees for marijuana use – died in the House Business Committee this week. There were many attempts to amend the bill but in the end a large coalition of public and private employers didn’t even want a task force to study the issue. Another bill that received the same fate was HB 22-1277, a bill to allow public entities to do business with credit unions. This turned into a fight between credit unions and the banks. Meanwhile, the Senate spent a lot of time debating their priority piece of legislation, SB 22-001, a crime prevention bill that would provide grants to local governments to evaluate safer street design to discourage crime. The Senate also had a late night this week debating the Reproductive Health Equity Act – it passed on a party-line vote and will head to the Governor for his signature. One of the top priorities for the Polis Administration – the creation of the Department of Early Childhood (HB 22-1295)- passed the House. The bill received heavy debate and was amended to address some stakeholder concerns; however, many still remain for the counties and school districts and it is unknown if these will be addressed in the Senate. This bill will implement the state’s free preschool program. Activity and debate have heated up at the Capitol and we are seeing longer evenings and longer committee hearings. We have 537 bills introduced with a little over 45 days to go. RMAA We have been told that a late bill to study pollinator health has been submitted to Senate leadership. We do not know if the request will be granted. If anything, this may be an opportunity to direct the study to specifically look at issues that could be beneficial to our industry. All is very preliminary at the moment and we will continue to track the discussions.

We are now approximately one-third of the way through the 2022 session. As of noon today, 412 bills have been introduced. The legislature will not meet on President’s Day, February 21. The House Judiciary Committee spent a late night on a contentious bill (HB 22-1131) involving young people who are in the criminal justice system. After 60 witnesses (during a snowstorm), the Committee did not take action on the bill, but laid it over for amendments. The House spent the week debating a bill to require the state (rather than local governments) to regulate bicyclists rolling through controlled intersections (stop signs or traffic signal) at a certain speed. Meanwhile in the Senate, legislators spent a lot of time debating a bill prohibiting the use of deceptive interrogation tactics with minors. Ultimately, this pitted law enforcement against juvenile justice advocates. In the Senate Business Committee, bill (SB 22-094) was killed as it would have been extremely costly to property and casualty insurers thereby threatening the affordability and attainability of insurance in the state. The mid-year budget adjustments (supplemental appropriations) have passed the legislature and now await consideration by the Governor. The Joint Budget Committee will now concentrate full-time on figure setting for FY 2022-23.