Upheaval under Trump could alter Colorado trends on air pollution, endangered species and transit

A conservative, reform-minded federal government could roll back tax credits that make electric vehicles cheaper to buy. Colorado is relying on U.S. and local credits to meet its greenhouse gas and ozone goals. 

They could grant relief to Gov. Jared Polis and other Western governors who asked the Biden White House to loosen ozone caps in states plagued by wildfires and high background ozone. 

They could suspend recently issued land protections for the greater sage grouse, a threatened species whose status and fate present constant tensions among Western conservatives, nonprofits and federal authorities. 

They could halt new methane-cutting rules, open more Colorado land for extraction, and rip up federal promises to the Regional Transportation District and Colorado Department of Transportation to support bus and train transit projects with hundreds of millions of dollars. 

They — 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.”

Colorado greenhouse gas reduction targets to combat global warming are the same as those the U.S. agreed to as part of the international accords signed in Paris in 2015, said Clay Clarke, climate unit supervisor for the Air Pollution Control Division of the state health department. Those goals, for example, include a 50% cut to carbon dioxide emissions across the entire Colorado economy by 2050, from a baseline set in 2005. 

Colorado officials will be focused, Clarke said, on the state “continuing to do its part, and really showing that we can put an economy like Colorado’s — that’s diverse, that’s been growing, and that’s had population growth — on a trajectory to reduce emissions very much in line with what was agreed to.”

Colorado Energy Office director Will Toor said important state climate change legislation and rules started under a GOP-led federal government. 

“My first two years on this job (starting in 2019), when we were doing some of the most groundbreaking legislative work in this arena, was while Donald Trump was president, and we were able to make really significant progress,” Toor said. “And I’m confident we’ll continue to be able to make significant progress with him as president again. If anything, I think state level leadership will be more important than ever.”

The environmental issues that Colorado leaders predict conflict over, in no particular order 

► Potential reversals of EPA restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas production, and local air pollution like ozone, where portions of Colorado are in “severe” nonattainment of current EPA caps. 

The Biden administration last week finalized new rules charging oil and gas drillers for each ton of released methane, which is a climate change accelerant doing multiple times the damage of carbon dioxide. Oil and gas industry advocates immediately targeted the new rules as a prime candidate for reversal under a more conservative Trump executive branch. 

Congressional Western Caucus Chairman Dan Newhouse, a Washington state Republican, said in a statement, “The lame-duck Biden administration will do everything they can to sabotage traditional energy sources in their final days. … Luckily, this administration’s days are numbered, and I look forward to helping a unified Republican government reduce energy costs across rural and Western America.”

While Polis has vowed to push back against some expected Trump moves, Polis might welcome reversals at the EPA on issues like ozone, where tightening federal limits threaten new rounds of mandatory Colorado policy changes. The spring 2024 letter from Polis and other Western governors said the White House and EPA should account for growing wildfire pollution and ozone drifting from Asia before adding new sanctions onto nonattainment states. 

Colorado environmental groups say it would be a health threat to state residents for either the Biden or Trump administration to let state officials off the hook through weakened EPA enforcement.

“The bottom line here is that human activity is causing Colorado to violate the federal ozone standards, we do have the ability to reduce that pollution that’s within our control, and we need action,” said Alexandra Schluntz, a senior attorney at Earthjustice. “And I read this letter as offering a lot of half-baked excuses.”

► Reducing tax credits that encourage consumers to buy clean electric vehicles, home heat pumps and other appliances, and raising tariffs or ending lucrative tax benefits to developers of solar farms, battery arrays, wind farms and other carbon reduction projects. 

A GOP-led Congress or Treasury Department could narrow the EV models available for the $7,500 federal credit, by demanding more U.S.-made models, noted Travis Madsen, transportation analyst with the nonprofit Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. That would still leave the Colorado EV credit in place, though it would be a blow to consumers. 

“But, I don’t think that it is certain that President-elect Trump will do that. … I note that Elon Musk benefits greatly from the availability of that tax credit through his ownership of Tesla,” the nation’s largest electric vehicle-maker, Madsen said. 

Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to help Trump’s reelection effort, and has been named to lead a government efficiency task force with bold plans to cut federal spending. No one knows yet what Musk will say about federal spending that benefits his companies. 

“Will Musk use some of the influence he’s gained here? Will other manufacturers defend this policy to help them comply with state-based clean transportation rules like the one we have in Colorado?” Madsen said.

Besides, he said, “deeper changes to the EV tax credits that are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, including the commercial EV tax credits for light-, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, would require an act of Congress. I think that’s a much higher bar to clear and the outcome is highly uncertain.”

Higher tariffs promised by Trump are indeed a big threat to Colorado’s renewable energy revolution, said Mike Kruger, CEO of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association. Tariffs might boost domestic manufacturers of solar panels or wind turbines, Kruger said, but they would sharply raise costs for building new Colorado solar utilities or adding panels to homes. 

And, Kruger said, “we are worried about the removal of the tax credits available under the Inflation Reduction Act. This would hurt a rapidly expanding domestic solar and storage manufacturing industry, as well as dramatically increase the cost of clean energy for all Coloradans.”

By Friday, when Kruger helped host a training session for solar installers on the roof of Jewish Family Service in southeast Denver, paid for by Denver’s climate sales tax, he was feeling a bit more reflective.

“All is not lost,” he said. “All will just be more expensive.”

► Backtracking on efforts to protect threatened or endangered species, and Department of the Interior decisions to elevate recreational and open space protections on federal lands to the same level of priority as oil and mineral extraction. 

Years of arguing over more protection for both the greater and Gunnison sage grouse species is a perfect example of renewed tensions. Three days after the election, the Biden administration announced new federal land-use protections for the sage grouse, whose habitat in Colorado and other Western states has been decimated by development and megadrought. The guidelines could make it harder to develop new energy projects and other uses of federal land that blankets the West. 

The Associated Press quoted Wyoming U.S. Sen. John Barasso, a Republican, predicting a reversal of the rules. “I look forward to working with the Trump-Vance administration to reverse this reckless decision,” said Barrasso, who is in line to chair the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee.

Conservative signals on new directions for the Department of the Interior are everywhere, but no more pointedly than in the Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump administration written by a policy-oriented nonprofit with close ties to the GOP and trade groups. 

“Biden’s DOI believes most BLM land should be placed off-limits to all economic and most recreational uses,” Project 2025 warns. 

New appointees at BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Forest Service and other executive branch agencies could try to rollback or rewrite dozens of Democratic administration rules that carved out new land protections and promoted recreation over extraction. Colorado’s oil and gas industry had battled new BLM rules issued last year for millions of acres of land on the Western Slope.

The Sierra Club’s national director, Ben Jealous, issued a post-election statement that the organization is prepared to fight what it considers backsliding on the environment, as it did in the first Trump term. 

“We will not let one climate denier in the White House erase all the progress we have made,” Jealous said. “We will be a force of nature and use every tool at our disposal to defend our democracy and critical environmental protections, and continue to build toward the clean energy economy and future we need.”  

► Shutting off the flow of new federal transit support, by cutting grants to train, bus transit or other “multi-modal” traffic solutions. 

Colorado transportation agencies have bold plans to add Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, services on multiple busy commuting corridors, expand passenger rail up and down the Front Range, and support transit-oriented development with denser housing, bike lanes and walkable neighborhoods. The incoming Trump administration, meanwhile, has tapped Musk and others to propose massive cuts to nondefense spending, and conservative think tanks called for repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that are home to many of the transportation and renewable energy subsidies. 

Colorado should continue to fight for federal transit aid, environmental advocates say, but transit fans should take heart that local voters and lawmakers continue to support new projects. RTD easily won a metro Denver vote allowing it to keep about $60 million in annual sales taxes that otherwise would have been refunded to voters under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. State lawmakers created a new fee to support transit projects. The City and County of Denver is managing construction of BRT on East Colfax Avenue, in collaboration with RTD and the Colorado Department of Transportation. 

“We’re educating and recruiting people to be part of what we need to do to protect our lands and to protect our air and our water, and I think time and time again, the public has shown those are very important issues,” CoPIRG’s Katz said. “And so I am hopeful that no matter who is in power, we can always make progress when it comes to protecting our environment and our health.”