Oppose SB25-306 - Protect Colorado's Air Quality

Express your opposition to the corporate-backed auditing bill, SB25-306,
which targets the Air Pollution Control Division and Division of Labor Standards and Statistics.
Personalize and send your message to legislators and Gov. Polis below.

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Oppose SB25-306 - Stand up for Healthy Air Quality

Dear [elected official],

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I'm writing to ask you to oppose SB25-306, a corporate-backed bill which targets the Air Pollution Control Division and the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics with a new auditing regimen. Given our current state budget shortfall and the recent cuts at the federal EPA, this is a bad time to burden our regulators with more audits. The American Lung Association recently gave Denver and Boulder an "F" grade for ozone and particulates, and ranked Denver-Aurora-Greeley regional air quality in as the 6th lowest in the nation.

SB25-306 provides no compelling reason to target our air quality regulator, nor does this bill result from any public process identifying problems with these agencies.  Without any established need or stated goal, these audits will likely be an inefficient and ineffective use of the state auditors' time, raising the question of what other duties the auditor would need to set aside in order to fulfill this new mandate — especially since the bill provides no funding for the audits it requires.

Furthermore, the bill provides no criteria or process for determining what criteria the audits will be based on. It does not describe the intent, goals, or use planned for the audits, or  any mechanisms to make use of the findings.

I support the mission of the Air Pollution Control Division to protect the health and well-being of Coloradans by enforcing the state's air pollution laws and improving our air quality. Periodic audits conducted for no stated reason could easily detract from this mission. The division, as well as most state agencies, serves under an elected governor and implements the law as written by elected legislators, and those are the entities meant to hold agencies accountable for their work. These elected officials are already free to call upon the auditor to evaluate any agency's performance without need of this bill.

It's important to note that this bill is backed by the same corporate interests that previously pitched the "Colorado DOGE" bill concept, which would have formed a committee to review state rules and regulations that were adopted with public input, potentially undermining that input. The impetus for SB25-306 is clearly not an expressed public interest but rather the interests of polluting businesses themselves seeking to weaken the Air Pollution Control Division and undermine its accountability to the public.

Please vote no on SB25-306.

Sincerely, [Your information here]