An old picture of stockings hung by the fire, waiting for the big guy to come by
OK, I was distracted by a number of things today. I could tell you all about the various issues with pets, with obligations to be other places than in front of my computer, with sales to make, with last minute shopping for food, but it all adds up to, I didn’t post my Open Thread at 7PM. I apologize.
Some of the things I’ve noticed and wanted to share with you:
Since a number of readers — about 50% from the last poll in fact — are not in Colorado, you may not realize that Colorado is not receiving much snow. In fact, not only is Colorado in a drought, but Colorado is in a warm spell as well. Much of Colorado has warm, dry winds that are causing fire warnings to cover the state because the ground is not covered in snow. Even the ski areas are having problems generating enough snow to cover even the slopes where the skiers are to use for skiing and snowboarding because even when the snow comes down (through natural and artificial means), some of it is melting from the warm weather and the warm winds. This is not to say there is no snow and all of the Colorado high country is bare, rocky terrain, but it isn’t the deep powder that makes for good skiing and for a good snowpack that will provide for plenty of snow runoff in the spring for the lakes and rivers. We can’t predict how much this may be the course of the snow through the season. Maybe Mother Nature will give us lots of snow in January, February, March and April as she usually does, but this is the second year in a row with a brown Christmas at my elevation of 8300 feet in Estes Park and I’m getting a bit worried about this new trend.
From Colorado Public Radio: Pueblo steel mill faces lawsuits over allegedly stopping shipments of train track rails
The freight railroad company BNSF says the Rocky Mountain Steel Mill in Pueblo stopped shipping rails for train tracks this fall. That’s according to a recent legal claim filed by the railroad.
The filing says the steel maker demanded an increase of 50 percent above the agreed price. This dispute began shortly after the steel mill was sold by Evraz to investment company Atlas Holdings, which operates the facility as part of its Orion Steel Company.
According to the BNSF filing in the Business Court of Texas, it purchases more than 100,000 tons of rail valued at more than $50 million annually and that an agreement in May 2024 required BNSF to purchase at least 80 percent of its rails from Rocky Mountain Steel for a specific price.
There is not an “immediately available alternative source of rail supply,” according to BNSF.
The article at the link has a response from the steel company saying that the price is too low. I don’t know who is right and who is wrong, but this seems to me to be a case where an investment company is trying to price gouge to get more money from the company that they bought rather than honor the terms of the deal they signed on to.
From the Colorado Sun: Federal judge blocks Colorado law requiring that consumers be warned of air quality effects of gas stoves
A federal judge in Denver on Friday indefinitely blocked Colorado from enforcing a new state law requiring that retails post air quality warnings on gas stoves sold in stores or online.
U.S. District Court Judge S. Kato Crews issued a preliminary injunction against House Bill 1161, which was passed by the legislature earlier this year and signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis. It took effect Aug. 6, and imposed fines up to $20,000 per violation.
Crews, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden, agreed with an argument from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, a trade group, that the law likely violates their First Amendment rights.
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The preliminary injunction means the law cannot be enforced until and unless the case goes through the full legal process and the state overcomes the lawsuit filed by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. The state may also appeal the preliminary injunction to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Denver.
This isn’t an activist Trump judge. This is a judge who took the industry’s side of the case saying that they are being forced to say something that isn’t 100% proven. The problem I see is that what they’re being forced to say is not that gas stoves are dangerous. Just that people should go to a state website to look for themselves at information about gas appliances and what the possible risks to air quality might be in their homes. The article has more information.
Also from the Colorado Sun: Weiser, Hurd slam Trump’s denial of disaster declarations, funding for Colorado fire and flooding recovery
President Donald Trump denied two recent fire and flooding disaster relief requests from Colorado over the weekend, drawing criticism Monday from a Republican member of Congress and Colorado’s attorney general.
Gov. Jared Polis made the requests for federal assistance earlier this year after August’s Elk and Lee fires in Rio Blanco County damaged crucial electric lines and October’s record-breaking flooding in La Plata, Archuleta and Mineral counties damaged or destroyed drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.
The state estimates initial damage from the fires totaled about $27 million and the flooding at least $13 million.
Trump’s denials came Saturday, and Polis vowed to appeal Sunday. On Monday, Attorney General Phil Weiser said he is looking at the denials and considering how to move forward.
Weiser considers Trump’s disaster relief denials to be part of a “retribution campaign” for Colorado’s incarceration of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk serving a nine-year prison sentence for orchestrating a breach of her county’s election system in search of evidence of electoral fraud, and the state’s mail-in voting system.
“This is a concern that we are indeed mindful of, we are looking at, considering how to address,” he said of the disaster denials. “This administration is a threat to the rule of law, and we’ve got to address this concern with every tool we can.”
The denials are the latest in a stretch of federal blows to Colorado. Last week, the Trump administration announced it was canceling $109 million of previously committed grant funding for environment and transportation projects across the state. The following day, the administration announced it would dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a six-decade-old facility in Boulder.
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Trump has recently approved disaster declarations for Alaska, North Dakota, Nebraska and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota and denied declarations for Vermont, Illinois and Maryland, according to an AP analysis. The approvals and denials mostly follow the results of the 2024 election: Almost all of the states that have received declarations went for Trump, and all that have not went for Vice President Kamala Harris.
I need to end here and publish. I do want to wish everyone a very happy holiday (holy day) season however you wish to celebrate it (or not). Please let us know in the comments your thoughts on this end of the year and perhaps tune in next Monday when I promise to be on time and I will be asking for your hopes for 2026. Until then, the floor is yours.
