How Donald Trump’s presidency may impact 10 areas that Coloradans care about most
Vows to overhaul federal policies send powerful signals on immigration, the environment, health care and more.
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TOPICS: Abortion | Environment | Health insurance | Immigration | Oil and gas | Outdoors | Space Command | Tariffs | Water | Agriculture
Call it “the resistance 2.0.” Call it “life goes on.” But the early landscape of how blue Colorado will handle a second conservative-activist Trump administration is unfolding on a sun-drenched rooftop next to the Benihana in southeastern Denver.
Trainees screwed solar panels into brackets atop Jewish Family Service on South Tamarac Drive on Friday, working in a technical education program funded by Denver’s climate-dedicated sales tax approved by voters in the 2020 election.
Trump: Past & Future
The Colorado Sun is looking at how Donald Trump’s presidency may affect the issues Coloradans care about. We based our story choices on our Voter Voices survey and are using our past reporting to guide our coverage.
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“Regardless of the national election results, Colorado continues to train and install solar in our beautiful state,” said Mike Kruger, director of the trade group Colorado Solar and Storage Association.
The pointed message from advocates for renewable energy and other environmental causes, after voters nationally embraced a second Donald Trump administration and a GOP-controlled Congress, is that Coloradans who voted blue will fight to protect gains they believe they have made under Democratic policies. On solar energy. On abortion rights. On protecting rights for undocumented migrants. On keeping extractive industries away from beloved open spaces.
Business interests and red-voting parts of the state, meanwhile, celebrate the possibilities of “drill, baby, drill,” promised by the incoming federal administration. They will support efforts to roll back land and air regulations they find onerous and job-killing. And they will back redoubled enforcement of immigration laws they believe have been ignored.
National elections have local consequences. The Colorado Sun set out on a survey of potential federal changes in the areas our readers ask about most often. An atmosphere of watchfulness — whether welcoming transformation or preparing to fight it — is the only guarantee.
— Michael Booth, Environment reporter
ABORTION
How Trump’s presidency may affect abortion rights in Colorado
By Sandra Fish, Special to The Colorado Sun
Democrats made abortion and reproductive health care access central to the 2024 elections, and voters in seven states, including Colorado, approved constitutional amendments to guarantee the right to abortion.
Colorado’s abortion rights advocates are hoping the issue will be low on Trump’s priority list.
“There’s a big laundry list for his administration and, fortunately, we’re not on the short list,” said Karen Middleton, president of Cobalt Advocates, a Colorado abortion rights nonprofit that backed Amendment 79, the measure that amended the Colorado constitution to protect access to abortion. “I’m actually hoping that keeping it to the states will be at least an early priority.”
During the presidential campaign, Trump said he would veto a national abortion ban if Congress passed it because a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade sent the issue back to the states.
Brittany Vessely, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, said she doesn’t expect much federal action aimed at abortion. Instead, she expects court challenges to Colorado’s new constitutional provisions.
“There will not be a federal ban,” said Vessely, who helped lead the opposition to Amendment 79. “I anticipate legal action over 79.”
But some national abortion opponents still hold out hope that Trump will take other measures to curb or even outlaw the procedure. Several national groups this week outlined plans to fight back against changes in Colorado and other states, as well as potential action federal and state governments could take to limit abortion.
Here’s a look at what’s happened and what could happen in the battle over reproductive rights.
ENVIRONMENT
Upheaval under Trump could alter Colorado trends on air pollution, endangered species and transit
By Michael Booth, Environment reporter
A new Trump executive branch, a GOP Congress and more conservative judges on the federal bench could do quite a bit to alter the blue-green tint of Colorado’s political and environmental course, nonprofit and local officials say. If they are coming for Colorado policies, those advocates say, Colorado groups and state agency leaders should be vigilant and creative on defense.
“We’ve always believed that states are leaders, and the more states that take action, the more likely it is you’ll see that action on a federal level,” said Danny Katz of CoPIRG, a consumer-focused nonprofit advocating for ozone restrictions, recycling and renewable energy. “And I think that’s true no matter who or what the administration is. We’re always focused on getting wins on a local and state level, to show what’s possible and to move the market and to shape where our country is headed. So we’ll continue to do that.”
Here are a few of the environmental issues that Colorado leaders expect battles on in coming years include.
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HEALTH INSURANCE
The second Trump presidency could mean big changes for health insurance in Colorado
By John Ingold, Health reporter
For months while on the campaign trail, Republican leaders — including Trump — have been talking about making big changes to the U.S. health insurance system.
It’s just not clear what those changes will be or how they would impact Colorado.
Declaring that “Obamacare sucks,” Trump has vowed to replace the Affordable Care Act, but he has also at other times expressed openness to keeping it. (The 14-year-old law is, of course, also known as Obamacare, given that it was passed during the Barack Obama administration.) Asked at a debate what he plans to do, Trump said only that he has “concepts of a plan.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson has pledged to get rid of the Affordable Care Act without offering specifics, other than to promise “massive reform to make this work.”
The Affordable Care Act has become deeply entwined in the health care policy of Colorado and other states, meaning that repealing it or substantially rewiring it will result in big changes. But Colorado will also have a say in how those changes hit the state.
Here’s an overview of what it might look like if the ACA were repealed.
IMMIGRATION
Trump’s deportation plans would be disruptive in Colorado, where 1 in 10 residents is an immigrant
By Nancy Lofholm, Special to The Colorado Sun
Trump’s promise to kick off a mass deportation of immigrants living in Colorado illegally is setting up a showdown in a state with more than a half-million immigrants — a state that leans toward inclusion rather than exclusion, and that relies on immigrants for a healthy economy.
In Colorado, 1 in 10 residents is an immigrant of one sort or another: illegal with no permission to be in the country; with green-card status; working with visa permits; brought here as children with “Dreamer” protection; and naturalized citizens.
All are now under an immigration crackdown cloud as some in Trump’s orbit are publicly stating that America is now only for Americans.
Trump has said that millions of immigrants across the country stand to be deported and that immigrant roundups will begin with “Operation Aurora,” a sweep in the Colorado city that Trump has falsely claimed been taken over by criminal immigrant gangs.
Gov. Jared Polis is taking a tightrope approach to the possibility of federal officers and troops coming to Colorado to round up immigrants.
“We are always appreciative of federal assistance to make Colorado safer by prosecuting and deporting dangerous criminals. But we will not support deporting hardworking Americans and targeting innocent children and families,” said Eric Maruyama, a spokesperson for Polis.
OIL AND GAS
Colorado, federal government could be at odds on oil and gas priorities under Trump’s presidency
By Mark Jaffe, Special to The Colorado Sun
Trump’s vow to “drill baby, drill” on federal lands won’t initially have much of an impact in Colorado, but may eventually put the state and federal governments at odds on some priorities.
The two areas that could be at risk — places where legal settlements were made between the federal Bureau of Land Management and environmental groups — are the Thompson Divide and a big swath of southwestern Colorado.
There are about 2.1 million acres of issued but unused federal oil and gas leases in the state and the BLM has approved resource management plans, RMPs, for eastern Colorado, the Colorado River and an area around Grand Junction covering more than 1 million acres.
Those plans reflect priorities from the Biden administration and while the Trump administration might want to revise them, it is a long process that would face legal challenges from environmental groups.
OUTDOORS
A second Trump presidency could create big shifts in Colorado’s outdoor recreation economy
By Jason Blevins, Outdoors reporter
We do not know many specifics about how Colorado’s public lands and recreation economy are going to change under a second Trump administration, especially without knowing who the incoming president might tap to serve as Interior Secretary.
But if Trump follows recommendations in the 922-page Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” presidential transition proposal, there will be some big shifts.
The lead author on the Project 2025 plan for the Interior Department was William Perry Pendley, a conservative Evergreen-based lawyer who briefly led the Bureau of Land Management under Trump in 2020. The public lands energy policy recommendations in the Project 2025 plan are credited to Kathleen Sgamma, the Denver-based president of the Western Energy Alliance.
Perhaps the most impactful proposal in Pendley’s plan is calling for a repeal of the Biden administration’s withdrawal of mineral and energy leases on 221,000 acres in the Thompson Divide.
The Project 2025 plan urges the Interior Department to amplify the multiple-use mandate on public lands and increase drilling and mining while scaling back conservation-guided protections for wildlife and habitat.
SPACE COMMAND
Colorado could lose Space Command under Trump. Is it likely?
By Olivia Prentzel, General assignment reporter
Colorado’s fight to keep Space Command will be an “uphill battle,” said former Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, who alongside the state’s top political leaders vowed last week to push back on any effort by Trump to move its headquarters from Colorado Springs to Alabama.
The yearslong tug-of-war over the military base appeared to be far from over after a Republican Alabama congressman, Mike Rogers, told a Mobile radio station last week that Trump committed on the campaign trail to reverse President Joe Biden’s 2023 decision to permanently place the headquarters in Colorado Springs and that he was confident Trump would follow through on the promise within his first week of office.
Suthers has criticized Trump’s decision to move the base to Alabama in his final days of office, arguing it was a wholly political act, as have Gov. Jared Polis and many members of the state’s congressional delegation.
Colorado voted overwhelmingly for Biden during the 2020 election, while Alabama backed Trump by a large margin.
TARIFFS
Companies prepare for Trump’s promised tariffs on all imports. But who’ll end up paying is still a question.
By Tamara Chuang, Business reporter
Trump’s campaign was pretty clear: Companies that ship goods to the U.S. would face a 10% to 20% tariff, while Chinese imports would get a hefty 60% tax.
The thinking was that tariffs on foreign-made goods would encourage more manufacturing within U.S. borders, which would create more factory jobs. Trump’s tariffs are still just campaign promises, but companies are already trying to figure out how to adjust their operations should any new fees kick in.
Tariffs are taxes because they’re fees levied by governments. While the fees target those outside the U.S., it is the American consumer who often ends up getting the bill, said Alexandre Padilla, chair of the economics department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.
“The main argument that economists will make in general is that if the idea is to lower the price of goods and services for the lower-to-middle class,” Padilla said, “certainly paying tariffs is not the solution to that.”
WATER
Officials expect steady transition from Biden to Trump for Colorado River negotiations
By Shannon Mullane, Water reporter
Western states are mired in negotiations over future Colorado River cutbacks, but state officials agree on one point: A presidential changeover won’t derail the process.
Colorado River Basin officials have to stick to a tight, federally regulated timeline to replace water management rules that were created in 2007 and will expire in 2026. Negotiations over the new rules will overlap with leadership changes in Washington, D.C., when Trump steps back into office. But new administrations have not disrupted basin negotiations in the past, and state officials don’t expect big issues this time around either.
State negotiators, including Colorado River Commissioner Becky Mitchell of Colorado, said they are committed to continuing the negotiations.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that if we come up with something that we — the seven states — can live with, that it would be satisfactory to Reclamation,” said Gene Shawcroft, Utah’s top negotiator and chair of Colorado River Authority of Utah. “The onus is still on us as states to come up with a solution.”
AGRICULTURE
Agriculture in Colorado under Trump’s presidency: Less conservation, more deregulation
By Tracy Ross, Rural reporter
Trump hasn’t yet landed on whom he’ll choose for his secretary of agriculture, with around 15 options in the mix as of Nov. 13. But if the person he chooses follows guidelines in Project 2025, repeal of the Agriculture Risk Coverage program and the Price Loss Coverage program could be on tap, because, according to the doctrine, the programs double-pay producers for losses, when combined with Crop Loss Insurance.
That could hobble smaller producers, especially if Trump fulfills his promise to impose huge tariffs “on everyone and, most detrimentally, Mexico and Japan,” said Larry Lempka, whose Los Rios Farm along the Little Thompson River in Larimer County has been in his family for more than 60 years.
During his first administration, Trump “threw incredible amounts of money into USDA and back at the farmers,” Lempka added. “But they were all big farmers, big businesses. It wasn’t the little guy who got any of it. So it’s the people in power, the people with huge farms — and the Wall Street money buying up agriculture and equipment — that are going to benefit.”
