By Marianne Goodland
Legislative reporter 

Polis vetoes 4 following close of session

 


Friday, June 10 marked 30 days since the end of the 2022 General Assembly session and the deadline for all bills sent to the governor to be signed, vetoed or become law without his signature.

The General Assembly introduced 657 bills during its 120-day session that began on Jan. 12. Of those bills, 144 were lost, leaving 513 headed to the governor’s desk.

Governor Jared Polis vetoed four bills in the weeks following the May 11 adjournment:

• House Bill 1218 would have required certain commercial and multifamily dwellings to install electric vehicle charging stations. Polis said the bill could result in higher housing costs at a time when housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in Colorado;

• Polis vetoed HB 1387, a bill on homeowners’ associations, fearing it could lead to higher HOA fees;

• HB 1221 would have created a county coroner and mortuary mental health and wellness program in the Behavioral Health Administration and in funeral homes or coroner's offices that do not already provide health insurance to their employees. Polis said he disagreed with the premise of setting up a mental health program for one specific profession; and

• HB 1399 would prohibit someone from calling themselves a music therapist if they did not possess the required training or board certification. Polis pointed out the Department of Regulatory Agencies, which conducted two reviews of the profession, said it did not need regulation.

In the past several weeks, Polis has signed several bills important to rural Colorado and its rural lawmakers. Among them: Senate Bill 53, sponsored by Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, and Representatives Barbara McLachlan, D-Durango, and Tim Geitner, R-Falcon.

Rep. Rod Pelton, R-Cheyenne Wells, had been the initial House sponsor but dropped off to allow Geitner, who has pushed for several bills on the issue in the last few years, to take on the issue one last time, and to obtain a Democratic co-sponsor.

Polis signed the bill in Wiggins on June 8. 

The same day, the Governor signed SB209, another Sonnenberg-sponsored bill, to set up a program to help small meat packers or those who want to get into the business with help obtaining loans or grants from the United States Department of Agriculture. The program will be run through the Colorado Department of Agriculture.

Polis signed more than a dozen bills dealing with behavioral health, to be funded in part by $450 million in American Rescue Plan Act assistance. The biggest is the establishment of a behavioral health administration that will administer many of the programs funded with those federal dollars, under HB 1278, sponsored by Pelton and Rep. Mary Young, D-Greeley. Polis signed the bill on May 25.

Another measure carried by Sonnenberg, Pelton and Young is SB 147, which directs $11 million into behavioral health care programs for children. That includes a new psychiatry consultation program at the University of Colorado that will collaborate with a variety of agencies and expanding two existing school-based behavioral health. Under the conditions of the American Rescue Plan Act, all dollars must be obligated by Dec. 31, 2024. How the State will keep those programs funded after the dollars are expended is yet to be determined. SB 147 was signed into law on May 17.

About $600 million of the state’s ARPA dollars will help pay off a federal loan for unemployment compensation, under SB 234, also signed on May 25. The State borrowed more than $1 billion from the federal government to pay unemployment claims during the pandemic. The rest of the loan will be paid for with a “solvency surcharge” levied to employers beginning next year, although the State’s economic recovery could raise the taxable wage base and forestall those increases. SB 234 also expands eligibility for certain unemployment benefits, such as eliminating the one-week waiting period for benefits. That won’t take place, however, until the unemployment trust fund reaches a $1 billion balance. Another enhancement is to raise the amount part-time workers can claim in unemployment benefits from 25 percent to 50 percent of the weekly benefit amount.

Among the water bills signed by the Governor: SB 28, a bill co-sponsored by Sonnenberg and Sen. Cleave Simpson, R-Alamosa, which takes $60 million in ARPA funds to buy and retire irrigation wells and/or irrigated acreage in the Republican and Rio Grande river basins. The move is to satisfy compact compliance in the Republican basin and with aquifer recoveries and maintaining the aquifers in the Rio Grande basin.

The Colorado Water Plan got $8.2 million from HB 1316, which also included $3.8 million for the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program, which supports recovery efforts for three wildlife species and compliance with the Endangered Species Act. The law was signed on May 23. 

SB 198, which would provide funding to clean up orphaned oil and gas wells, was signed on June 2. The law establishes an enterprise — a state-run business — that will collect mitigation fees from oil and gas operators to fund the cleanup of those wells. A 2020 report by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission showed 454 orphaned wells in need of plugging, including at least two in Yuma County; 35 in Morgan County and 86 in Logan County. 

 

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