PKolbenschlag

PKolbenschlag https://www.dailykos.com/user/PKolbenschlag/rss/index.xml News Community Action Copyright 2005 - Steal what you want Mon, 27 Jan 2020 04:24:44 +0000 Mon, 27 Jan 2020 04:24:44 +0000 Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Daily Kos rss@dailykos.com (Daily Kos) Air Quality is Being Harmed by Oil And Gas Development https://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/8/19/1561803/-Air-Quality-is-Being-Harmed-by-Oil-And-Gas-Development Sometimes it seems that a headline should be too obvious to write, a title too trite and true. The "Dog Bites Man" story. But there it is. And here we are--policy-wise--debating as if it is actually a question whether Colorado's air quality is harmed by industrial development known to spew methane and volatile compounds. Such is the power of money and slick PR. And it doesn't just buy opinion and confound the public, it seems to buy congressmen too. Earlier this month a new NASA study put to rest any doubt that America’s largest cloud of methane pollution was tied directly to oil and gas development in the San Juan Basin, the <a href="http://www.durangoherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?aid=/20160815/NEWS01/160819761&template=mobileart" title="">Durango Herald</a> is reporting. <blockquote> A two-year study released by NASA on Monday confirmed suspicions that energy extraction practices are largely responsible for the methane hot spot in the Four Corners. “The argument that most of the emissions are from natural seeps, definitely, we can put that to rest,” said Christian Frankenberg, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “Most of the plumes we observed were directly related to industrial facilities.” Shortly after the study was made public, a coalition of local and regional oil and gas associations in Colorado and New Mexico decried NASA’s findings, calling it limited in scope. “They did not fly the entire outcrop,” Christi Zeller, executive director of the La Plata County Energy Council, said of the area where methane naturally escapes from the Earth’s surface. “We disagree with it (NASA’s study) wholeheartedly. We know and believe the largest sources are that outcrop.” </blockquote> And this past Tuesday the state health department issued a pollution alert for the Front Range according to the <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/2016/08/16/ground-level-ozone-pollution-alert-denver-front-range/" title="">Denver Post</a>: <blockquote> The Front Range corridor from El Paso County north to Larimer and Weld counties, including the Denver-Boulder area, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Greeley, is under the alert. Ozone concentrations are expected occasionally to reach unhealthy levels for sensitive groups Tuesday and Wednesday. People exercising outdoors and those doing physical jobs or tasks outdoors should be aware of the conditions and react accordingly, the health department advises. Unusually sensitive people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion. </blockquote> As the <a href="http://gazette.com/air-quality-warning-issued-for-colorado-springs-elsewhere-on-front-range/article/1583001">Gazette</a> reported from Colorado Springs, yesterday: <blockquote> Ozone occasionally accumulates at high concentrations near the ground during the summertime, when pollution from vehicle exhaust, paints, cleaning fluids and other chemicals react with sunshine. </blockquote> The Front Range corridor from El Paso County north to Larimer and Weld counties, including the Denver-Boulder area, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Greeley, is under the alert. <blockquote> Ozone concentrations are expected occasionally to reach unhealthy levels for sensitive groups Tuesday and Wednesday. People exercising outdoors and those doing physical jobs or tasks outdoors should be aware of the conditions and react accordingly, the health department advises. Unusually sensitive people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion. </blockquote> As the <a href="http://gazette.com/air-quality-warning-issued-for-colorado-springs-elsewhere-on-front-range/article/1583001">Gazette</a> reported from Colorado Springs, yesterday: <blockquote> Ozone occasionally accumulates at high concentrations near the ground during the summertime, when pollution from vehicle exhaust, paints, cleaning fluids and other chemicals react with sunshine. </blockquote> The Front Range has been out of compliance with the federal ozone standard for almost ten years, which was tightened even further last year. Colorado has reason to address emissions causing ozone pollution and it’s not just the feds. Poor air quality is a public health menace and a drain on public resources. In the days between the Four Corners methane report and this recent public health warning, another a first-of-its-kind study <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160808123832.htm">was being reported</a> out of CU Boulder. That study also linked oil and gas development to local air pollution—the very kind threatening Coloradans' health this week. <blockquote> A new study is the first to directly quantify how emissions from oil and gas activities influence summertime ozone pollution in the Colorado Front Range confirms that chemical vapors from oil and gas activities are a significant contributor to the region's chronic ozone problem. </blockquote> The CU Study found that oil and gas operations in the region contributed nearly one-fifth of the ground-level summer ozone pollution along the Front Range. <blockquote> The northern Front Range has seen a big boom in oil and gas activity in recent years: The number of active wells in central Colorado's Wattenberg gas field nearly doubled to over 27,000 between 2008 and 2015, according to state data. ...[The CU study] found that the VOCs from oil and gas contribute an average of 17 percent to local, chemically produced ozone during the summer. "Seventeen percent is small but potentially still significant," said Steven Brown, co-author and scientist at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. " </blockquote> The CU study is relevant, not only because Coloradans are literally being warned about exercising outside, but because the federal government is working to address this very problem through new regulations clamping down on fugitive oil and gas emissions. Both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management have recently implemented or are finalizing rules to limit methane leakage from oil and gas facilities. Of course these efforts to clean up our air are being opposed by the oil and gas industry--as the top quote in this post makes clear. And from the Albuquerque Journal article, also on the <a href="http://www.abqjournal.com/826827/nasa-four-corners-methane-hot-spot-tied-largely-to-natural-gas.html">NASA</a> study: <blockquote> The report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said about 250 individual sources — including gas wells, storage tanks, pipelines, and processing plants — appear to account for about half of all methane emissions in the area. Of that, about 50 percent is coming from just 25 individual sources, meaning two dozen points of emission are responsible for about one-fourth of all the methane spewing into the atmosphere in the Four Corners. ... The study comes amid debate over new Environmental Protection Agency rules released in May, plus forthcoming Bureau of Land Management regulations, that require industry operators to cease venting natural gas into the air, repair leaky infrastructure and monitor their assets for methane emissions. Those policies aim to slow global warming, since methane is about 80 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas over the first 20 years after entering the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. ...Industry leaders, however said new regulations should await the results of more research now underway. “We believe a whole lot of additional studies are needed before we can say massive policy changes are called for in the San Juan Basin,” </blockquote> A disappointing response from industry, perhaps, although not unexpected. But the worse of it is that it is not only oil and gas spokespeople that are denying the science and downplaying the threat. Chief among the opponents of cleaner air are a few of Colorado’s own congressmen. Take Third Congressional District representative, Scott Tipton for example. He not only represents the area that is “home to America’s largest methane cloud,” but he hails from the region as well. Rather than working with the agencies to help address a serious problem plaguing his district and the State of Colorado, Rep. Scott Tipton has <a href="http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20160727/NEWS01/160729884/Rep-Scott-Tipton-urges-federal-agency-to-get-rid-of-new-methane-rule">chosen to side</a> with the industry instead, as reported in his hometown newspaper the Cortez Journal: <blockquote> Rep. Scott Tipton urges federal agency to get rid of new methane rule Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, joined 56 other members of Congress on Wednesday in signing and sending a letter to Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell asking her to withdraw the Bureau of Land Management’s new methane venting and flaring rule. ... Southwest Colorado’s San Juan Basin is home to part of the highest concentration of methane in the country. </blockquote> Representative Tipton's position on oil and gas has long been clear: he's all for it. And that appears to be regardless of what local<a href="http://www.gunnisontimes.com/news/tipton-under-fire-thompson-divide-plan"> communities</a> or <a href="http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/170917?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+AspenDailyNews+(Aspen+Daily+News)">elected officials</a> think. As Gail Schwartz, his Democratic opponent this November, noted at a recent stop in <a href="http://www.chieftain.com/news/region/5001756-120/schwartz-tipton-chieftain-pueblo">Pueblo,</a> and as reported in the Chieftain: <blockquote> “Scott Tipton represents his largest donors, which are oil and gas. He doesn’t represent his communities,” she said. </blockquote> Some things a bit too obvious to state. That oil and gas development pollutes and that pollution is harmful, for instance. Or that an elected representative should look out for constituents and the public good foremost, rather than for the benefit of out-of-state well-heeled donors. This November we can set both these matters on a more sensible course. Elections matter, including to the very air we breathe. rss@dailykos.com (PKolbenschlag) OilAndGas Rescued _1561803 Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:42:39 +0000 Malheur Yeehawdists Aim to Give Grand Junction, CO Back to Mexico https://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/16/1470698/-Malheur-Yeehawdists-Aim-to-Give-Grand-Junction-Back-to-Mexico NEW NORTH MEXICO - Hooboy. YallQaeda spokesman reveals intent of bird refuge occupiers. The Oregonian is <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/occupiers_want_us_to_surrender.html#incart_maj-story-1">reporting</a>: <blockquote> BURNS – Protesters holding the bird sanctuary southeast of here want every county in the U.S. to start a process giving back federal land to the previous owners. They expect that process to start in <a href="http://www.co.harney.or.us/">Harney County</a> with a citizens group processing deeds, according to Ryan Payne, a self-styled militiaman and a key leader of the refuge occupation that started two weeks ago. In an interview, Payne provided the most clear statement yet about what the occupiers want to achieve. They now call themselves Citizens for Constitutional Freedom. </blockquote> <figure class="image-captioned align-right"><img alt="United-states-territorial-acquistions-midcentury.png" src="http://images.dailykos.com/images/196560/large/United-states-territorial-acquistions-midcentury.png?1452966503" title="United-states-territorial-acquistions-midcentury.png"> <figcaption>Britain, France, Mexico and dozens of First American Nations will no doubt be thrilled to know they could soon again have title to vast tracts of the American West. No word yet on when Putin will rear his head in Alaska.</figcaption> </figure> The public lands in western Colorado and New Mexico, a corner of Wyoming, and all of Utah, California and Nevada--prior to being part of the "federal estate" (or shrinking treaty lands) within the United States--were part of Mexico. As I wrote in another <a href="http://coloradopols.com/diary/author/PKolbenschlag/page/2#sthash.G4JTtRhW.dpuf">diary</a> about the lands in the North Fork Valley, Colorado: <blockquote> Where I sit today, along the arroyos that sweep down from the flanks of the Grand Mesa, maybe right atop where Friar Dominguez <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominguez-Escalante_Expedition">stood</a> to look at the plain of the North Fork of the Gunnison 80 years before my forebear marched against Santa Anna, and when the valley was still claimed by Spain; this was all part of Mexico, and ceded at the point of a bayonet in the treaty of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo" title="">Guadalupe Hidalgo</a> in 1848. Of course the land only ‘belonged’ to Spain and then Mexico in the sense that they claimed it, their explorers and traders and trappers passed through most certainly on occasion, as had the Spanish friars in 1776, not too far from what became one leg of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Spanish_Trail_%28trade_route%29">Old Spanish Trail</a>. And other people already lived here too. The Spaniards did not discover it. Indeed in western Colorado, and right here in the North Fork, people have made their home for <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com/outdoors/articles/clues-to-the-past">12,000 years or more</a>. </blockquote> This means that if the Bundy Boys are successful and avoid an extended stay in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence">Florence</a>, they may be surprised when they get back home to find their overseer is no longer a federal employee but a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federales">Federale</a>. Meanwhile, someone better contact Colorado Sen. Ray Scott and the Mesa County Commission. As much as both like to kvetch about the burdens of having to protect our shared public lands, clean air, and water supplies they might want to start brushing up on their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanglish">Spanglish</a>. Then they can more effectively complain to Mexico City. rss@dailykos.com (PKolbenschlag) Bundy malheur Militia oregonstandoff PublicLands YallQaeda _1470698 Sat, 16 Jan 2016 17:51:22 +0000 Public Lands Land Grab Group in Hot Water https://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/15/1470479/-Public-Lands-Land-Grab-Group-in-Hot-Water This is an update on an article of mine from a couple months previous, that is newly relevant with the Bundy Militia Oregon Standoff at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The standoff is part of a dubious legacy that lacks Constitutional merit, and which often appears more about self-enrichment and self-aggrandizement than about commitment to principles. WESTERN SLOPE, COLO. - Montrose County is not a rich county. Mesa County is currently concerned that the latest bust in the chain of boom-and-bust that is its self-fulfilling economic legacy will leave it unable to fund all its commitments. But that did not stop both from <a href="http://www.americanlandscouncil.org/colorado" target="_blank" title="">spending thousands of taxpayer dollars</a> on a hare-brained scheme from the Utah-based American Lands Council that most legal scholars note is based on fiction and wishful thinking to seize control of millions of acres of America's public lands. Consider this analysis by the American Constitutional Society. <blockquote> The Supreme Court has regularly upheld this plain text understanding of authority over American public lands. In its 1840 case, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=284940769073870545&q=United+States+v.+Gratiot&hl=en&as_sdt=8006&as_vis=1" target="_blank" title="">United States v. Gratiot</a>, the Supreme Court held that “[t]he power over the public lands is vested in Congress by the Constitution, without limitation.” A hundred years later, the Court held the same in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16289769564691933181&q=%22Congress+may+constitutionally+limit+the+disposition+of+the+public+domain+to+a+manner+consistent+with+its+views+of+public+policy%22+san+francisco&hl=en&as_sdt=8006&as_vis=1" target="_blank" title="">United States v. City & County of San Francisco</a>: “Congress may constitutionally limit the disposition of the public domain to a manner consistent with its views of public policy.” The Constitution grants the United States exclusive legal control over American public lands. Congress may initiate a transfer or sale, but demands by state or local governments have no constitutional foundation. </blockquote> In addition to putting Colorado <a href="http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/when-it-comes-to-population-job-prosperity-8232the" target="_blank" title="">cash-strapped counties</a> on the hook for its <a href="http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/public-land-transfer-laws-not-constitutional-then-not-constitutional-now" target="_blank" title="">Constitutionally dubious</a> and Quixotic quest, the American Lands Council apparently has also steered foul of good government laws. Its efforts to grease the skids in at least one state legislature were contrary to lobbying and disclosure laws, Colorado Ethics Watch is <a href="http://www.coloradoforethics.org/co-legal/entry/sos-finds-reasonable-grounds-that-alc-violated-lobbyist-law" target="_blank" title="">claiming</a>. And the Colorado Secretary of State's office, led by Republican Wayne Williams, had reason to <a href="http://crew.3cdn.net/206711d6a4faf5afb0_hnm6yhp8e.pdf" target="_blank" title="">think that likely</a> enough it filed a notice of a hearing to hold Mr. Ivory to account. It has ordered Ken Ivory, a Utah state legislator and the force behind the American Lands Council land grab movement, to answer charges that his organization violated at least three Colorado laws. In Colorado the legislation that appears to have been questionably generated was sponsored in the state senate by Jerry Sonnenberg. <blockquote> Colorado SB 13-142 Cede Federal Agricultural Lands: Concerning the requirement that the federal government extinguish title to all agricultural public lands and transfer title to the state. </blockquote> For his part, Sen. Sonnenberg acknowledges that the American Lands Council was working with him to contact other legislators, as the document issued by the Secretary of State's office notes: "I asked for American Lands Council to help me with contacting the other legislators on the Senate Ag Committee in which I chair as well as I was the bill sponsor for the bill in question," Sen. Sonnenberg responded to an inquiry from the SOS documented in the filing. That complaint was dismissed by the Secretary of State's office in December, according to an article in the <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/home/3420443-155/utah-lawmaker-got-a-hefty-pay" target="_blank" title="">Salt Lake Tribune</a>. <blockquote>Colorado Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert concluded on Dec. 23 that the email expenditure was too minor "and thus did not implicate either the professional lobbyist registration or the prohibition in [statute] against employment of unregistered persons."</blockquote> Nonetheless the complainant remains unconvinced that this activity meets the spirit of Colorado’s public ethic laws. <blockquote>Colorado Ethics Watch's Luis Toro said he was disappointed to see the secretary of state "keep opening the door to more unregistered lobbying that violates Colorado's strict law requiring disclosure of all corporate spending to influence legislators."</blockquote> In any case, dodging the more blatant allegations of fraud or illegality doesn't strengthen the weak underpinnings of the basic argument. Nor make the investment of scarce tax dollars on this scheme any wiser of an expenditure of public funds. Nor does it remove the overall appearance of shady behavior on the part of seizure proponents. Far from a grassroots, rural-inspired movement the land grab effort appears to be <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/americanlandscouncil/pages/85/attachments/original/1412559597/State-Bill-Status-2013-Transfer-of-Public-Land-Act-and-related-Legislation-.pdf?1412559597" target="_blank" title="">coordinated</a>, at least in part, out of a Utah/Washington DC consultancy. <a href="http://www.swensonstrategies.com/" target="_blank" title="">Swenson Strategies, Inc</a>. is following similar efforts across most of the West. <blockquote> We are founded on the values of absolute honesty, professional conduct, genuine relationships and smart strategic planning. </blockquote> That claim is questionable to many. Based on the reporting of the Salt Lake Tribune it appears that the American Lands Council has run afoul of "professional conduct" in several of the states where Swenson Strategies is tracking similar public lands land grab legislation. <blockquote> This is not the first time Utah Rep. Ken Ivory has been accused of selling "snake oil." But now his critics are calling him a crook. In formal complaints filed Monday in three states, a watchdog group alleges Ivory, a West Jordan Republican, uses phony facts and arguments to scam local governments into giving taxpayer dollars to <a href="http://www.americanlandscouncil.org/" target="_blank" title="">American Lands Council</a> (ALC), the nonprofit he started in 2012 to champion the transfer of Western public lands to states. The complaints focus on Ivory's practice of traveling the West, promoting land transfers to county commissioners and conservative groups and signing them up as dues-paying members of ALC. </blockquote> So far the American Lands Council has steered clear of getting caught for violating the letter of the law. But the questionable practices of its principal, Utah legislator Ken Ivory, continue according to <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/home/3420443-155/utah-lawmaker-got-a-hefty-pay" target="_blank" title="">recent reporting</a> from the Salt Lake Tribune. <blockquote>[Utah] State Rep. Ken Ivory was paid $135,000 last year for his work as president of the American Lands Council — a group dedicated to winning state ownership of federal lands — and his wife was paid another $18,000, according to the group's most recent tax filing.</blockquote> And as more and more cash-strapped rural counties buy into the scheme, Mr. Ivory’s rewards have also grown. <blockquote>Ivory's salary shot up by $40,000; the state representative estimated he spends about 60 hours a week working on issues for the American Lands Council.</blockquote> The movement behind events that manifest in incidents like the Malheur Trespass is paying off for the American Lands Council. <blockquote>The filing also shows that the group is growing, bringing in $336,524 in the 2014 tax year, an increase of almost 50 percent over 2013 and nearly as much as it raised in the prior two years combined.</blockquote> Even as tax payers get stuck with the bill. <blockquote>The group primarily raises money by selling memberships to corporations or Western counties for between $5,000 and $25,000.</blockquote> The American West has the preponderance of national public lands, belonging to and paid for, not by Mr. Sonnenberg, DC lobbyists, Ken Ivory, or Ammon Bundy but on behalf of all the American people now and in perpetuity. America's public lands are a treasure. The idea of turning them over to the likes of the State of Utah, into the hands of a highly partisan Colorado State Senate committee, or to a bunch of self-selected "sovereign citizens" that have arrived mostly unwelcome in the Oregon high desert to lay claim, is objectionable on its face. It is an affront to democratic values and a theft from American taxpayers. It is a shame that charlatans <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/home/2575779-155/snake-oil-salesman-rep-ken-ivory" target="_blank" title="">can part</a> gullible elected officials from public monies. Or send others on a legislative goose chase after their anti-government dreams. And that it all might be a scam is certainly not a recent revelation, as the <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/home/2575779-155/snake-oil-salesman-rep-ken-ivory" target="_blank" title="">Salt Lake Tribune</a> has earlier reported. <blockquote> "It's not simply a question of Rep. Ivory speaking his mind about what he thinks should happen. He is soliciting on the promise that if you give us money, we can get public land returned to your state," said attorney Anne Weismann, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based <a href="http://campaignforaccountability.org/category/cfa/press-release/" target="_blank" title="">Campaign for Accountability</a>. "More than half of the money they raise goes to him and his wife [Becky]." </blockquote> The American Constitutional Society points out what we might hope a State Senate Chairman would understand, or at least learn about without asking the (unregistered) lobbyist writing the bills. <blockquote> If transfer demand supporters want a change in United States land policy, they should petition the United States through Congress. Under the Constitution, state transfer demand laws can amount to little more than spent paper. </blockquote> Unfortunately in this case the 'spent paper' came with a tax-funded price tag. And apparently was ill gotten to boot. rss@dailykos.com (PKolbenschlag) Bundy Colorado oregonstandoff PublicLands Utah yallqueda _1470479 Fri, 15 Jan 2016 22:59:14 +0000 Has National Media Misread the 2015 Election? https://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/11/4/1444803/-Has-National-Media-Misread-the-2015-Election (Crossposted at <a href="http://coloradopols.com/diary/77839/has-national-media-misread-the-2015-election">Colorado Pols</a>) Colorado Results Counter Claims of Republican "Coast to Coast" Victories as 2016 Omen of Success This blog will be a bit of a contrarian view regarding the 2015 elections. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/2015-elections-conservatives-win_563972dee4b0b24aee4812a0" target="_blank">Much of the media</a> is <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/4/judson-phillips-8-takeaways-2015-elections/" target="_blank">reporting</a> the national results as a rebuke to Democrats and <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/11/03/gop-wins-kentucky-governors-race-in-top-state-election" target="_blank">President Obama</a>. Of course there are no national results but many local and state ones. And looking more closely at those might tell a different tale. Certainly a deeper dive reveals a more muddled story than simply declaring a "Coast to Coast" conservative sweep, as this over-eager headline writer at the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/11/04/the-daily-202-from-coast-to-coast-conservatives-score-huge-victories-in-off-year-elections/" target="_blank">Washington Post</a> did. <blockquote> <h4>The Daily 202: From coast to coast, conservatives score huge victories in off-year elections</h4> THE BIG IDEA: Just like the midterms one year ago, it was another awful night for Democrats.</blockquote> Hyperbolic headlines aside, or articles that inflate not altogether surprising results in conservative states and misread results such as the defeat in Ohio of the Constitutionally mandated marijuana monopoly, looking more closely at the details it appears results may not be the favorable Republican omen some hope it is for 2016. Take my state, for instance, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/deep-purple-rural-colorado-pete-kolbenschlag?trk=mp-author-card" target="_blank">purple Colorado</a>. Generally considered a political bellwether and always a swing state, 2016 will see another sure-to-be hotly contested U.S. Senate race, as well as a certain fight for the Electoral College votes that are up for grabs. This year, and usually by strong margins (albeit a low turn out), Colorado voters across the state from both red and blue counties, overturned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxpayer_Bill_of_Rights" target="_blank">TABOR</a> ("Taxpayer Bill of Rights") limits and voted for new taxes to fund transit, schools and infrastructure; defeated or recalled ultra-conservative school-board candidates; and exempted local jurisdictions from the state law prohibiting broadband development without relying on the telecom companies. The 2005 law that jurisdictions have exempted themselves from received strong Republican and enough Democratic support to pass in narrowly divided and split chambers. That telecom friendly law <a href="http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2005a/csl.nsf/billcontainers/FA216226F45192FE87256F41007B483C/$FILE/152_enr.pdf" target="_blank">(SB-152)</a> was passed <a href="http://www.muniwireless.com/2005/04/07/colorado-anti-muni-bill-passed-by-house-local-govt-committee/" target="_blank">against strong opposition</a> from local governments and most other stakeholders. After this year's results, that portion of the law, for all intents and purposes, is on life-support if not yet completely dead. rss@dailykos.com (PKolbenschlag) Colorado Election 2016 Election2015 Election2016 Marijuana _1444803 Thu, 05 Nov 2015 00:52:03 +0000