(Colorado) -- A couple of years ago lawmakers in Colorado passed House Bill 21-1266 or the Environmental Justice Disproportionate Impacted Community Bill. The bill's summary explains
the legislation concerns efforts to redress the effects of environmental injustice on disproportionately impacted communities, and, in connection therewith, making an appropriation.
Now that it's in play the state of Colorado wants to you what you think. A survey has been sent out to capture that information.
A little on the background now.
Governor Jared Polis appointed 22 members to the newly created Environmental Justice Action Task Force, born out of the legislation that was signed into law in 2021, House bill 21-1266.
According to the fiscal note on the legislation, the Air Quality Control Commission that's a part of the Department of Public Health and Environment or CDPHE must update the list of air pollutants which includes greenhouse gases. They would then figure out a fee for every ton of greenhouse gases. Electric utilities would have to submit plans to the state's Public Utilities Commission how how they plan to reduce emissions. The bill also creates a special position for an environmental justice specialist. A board that would promote environmental justice through the entire state would also be created and would provide updates to the mission of the state's energy office.
The deadline for the task force to make their recommendations on what environmental justice in Colorado would look like is coming up, final recommendations have to be to lawmakers, the Governor and CDPHE by November 14th of 2022.
You can share your ideas with the Task Force in three ways:
1). Fill out this survey to share your ideas about some key questions.
2). Download and edit the Word document available in the public google drive folder and send your edits to cdphe_ej@state.co.us: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xN8Pg7cpetRNST09IcS_GATv2SjXmsky
3). Send written feedback to cdphe_ej@state.co.us.
You can provide feedback in either English or Spanish or any other language.
The deadline to submit feedback on the third draft of the Task Force's recommendations is October 14, 2022. You can still submit feedback after that date, but the Task Force may not be able to review them before its next meeting on October 24 and 25.
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