Colorado legislators on Monday spoke about improving the availability of affordable housing, bolstering the state’s education levels and helping businesses recover from the COVID-19 pandemic during the ninth annual Business Legislative Preview by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.
Senate Majority Leader Stephen Fenberg and Speaker of the House Alec Garnett represented Democrats, while Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert and House Minority Leader Hugh McKean spoke for Republicans. Denver Business Journal Senior Reporter Ed Sealover moderated the event, held at the Denver Art Museum.
The legislative session will begin Wednesday.
“We’ve really been hearing from voters that they are focused on the affordability issues facing everybody, whether it’s housing or whether it’s the cost of health care,” said Fenberg.
Holbert said political leaders need to take more of a leadership role in getting people back to the workforce.
“There are so many people who are limited by fear,” said Holbert. “How do we convey a positive message that it is time to recover, to get out there and get back to where we were? … I don’t think fear can be overcome by a bill.”
They were asked how legislators were going to shore up the state’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which was decimated by record unemployment payouts during the pandemic. Colorado now owes $1 billion to the federal government. There’s a “solvency surcharge” that can be slapped on employers, or possibly using some of the federal $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus money.
“We’ve had conversations about delaying some of the surcharges and really making sure it happens when businesses are in a much better place,” said Fenberg.
Both Republicans were against going the surcharge route.
“Now is exactly the wrong time to implement a surcharge, or a fee, which effectively attacks employment when that is a key to recovery,” Holbert said.
“I was really careful to ask the (Colorado Department of Labor and Employment) one question: What is the total amount of increase in unemployment insurance? It’s 72%! That’s going to affect every family in the state,” said McKean.
Lawmakers were asked if state commissions like the Transportation Commission or the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Quality Control Commission have overreached their authority with some of their rulemaking.
“There have been some concerns raised by industry around the number of rulemakings,” said Garnett. “However, at the same time, there have been numerous examples with some bills that were issued by the legislature where industry said, 'Please put us in the rulemaking because rulemaking is where there is a more robust opportunity to take hold of your citizen legislators.' … It’s increasing the amount of time that you get to sit at the table and have your opinion heard.”
Holbert said rulemaking takes local control out of the equation and moves decision-making to a nonelected, statewide commission.
“I think our role as legislators is to make sure that the executive branch, Gov. (Jared) Polis and the departments under his administration, that they don’t exceed the authority that we delegate to them,” said Holbert.
“Equal Pay Act has injured every employer in the state because they are no longer able to attract every single person that they would like to make the best choice,” said McKean. “I think that’s one example of where the rulemaking has to be better.”
Garnett said they learned a lesson from the failed “Employer Traffic Reduction Program” proposal by the air quality commission in 2021, which would have mandated large employers to reduce employees’ single-occupied vehicle commutes.
“I think that’s what employers asked for is, instead of being a mandate, for there to be incentive-based programs so that employers are incentivized to provide more choices and options to employees,” said Garnett.
The legislators also discussed the rules that came out of the Transportation Commission recently, requiring road construction companies to model how road expansion projects will increase carbon emissions and require “multimodal projects” like bicycle lanes.
“We’ve had some of the worst days of air quality that Colorado has ever faced,” said Garnett.
“Transportation is one of the leading, if not the biggest, cause of emissions problems,” said Fenberg, both arguing that with more choices residents will have options besides driving.
Republicans maintained that the smoke from forest fires in Oregon and California contributed more to Colorado's bad air-quality days last year.
“It frustrates me now that we literally have a rule that says in order to put in a new road, we have to show that it will lower emissions,” said Holbert. “If we could wave a magic wand and put a new lane on eastbound I-70 behind the Eisenhower Tunnel, we might actually be able to lower emissions because people might spend less time stopped on I-70, waiting to get in and out of the tunnel.
“It frustrates me that this bill was supposed to fund what many people thought was more asphalt and concrete, and I think that’s one of the lowest priorities of the bill and it’s now going to incentivize public transit.”
He was referencing Senate Bill 260, which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law last year. The transportation funding bill is expected to raise about $5.4 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation.
