Colorado two years ago established protections for people who report public health concerns in their workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, those protections could become permanent under a bill lawmakers approved on Tuesday.

If signed into law, Senate Bill 97 would prohibit retaliation against workers for reporting any workplace health and safety concern or violation of health and safety rules – rather than only protecting reports related to a declared public health emergency, as is the case under House Bill 1415 from 2020.

“Nobody in our state should fear losing their job when they stand up for their rights,” said bill sponsor Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver. “While the pandemic exposed many health and safety concerns in the workplace, those concerns existed long before the pandemic and will continue to exist long after the pandemic.”

The state House passed the bill in a 41-24 vote on Tuesday, following the Senate’s 20-13 approval in March. The bill is now headed to Gov. Jared Polis for final consideration.

In the House, all Democrats voted in support of the bill and all Republicans voted in opposition. The partisan divide was similar in the Senate, where all Republicans, except for Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson, voted “no,” and all Democrats, except for Sen. Rachel Zenzinger of Arvada, voted “yes.”

Critics called the bill is unnecessary, adding it would raise annual state costs of around $700,000 by causing an increase of about 150 complaints filed annually.

“Yes, there’s isolated incidents but … are we trying to fix something that we don’t see much evidence of?” said Sen. Larry Liston, R-Colorado Springs, while voting against the bill in the Senate. “Once you get a program in place, the budget continues to grow and so does the number of full-time employees.”

Liston said Colorado already has enough worker protections in place.

Supporters of the bill disagreed. Herod said 169 complaints have been filed to date under the 2020 bill, arguing that shows a need for the legislation to continue allowing workers to speak up without fear of retaliation.

The nonprofit law firm Towards Justice also testified in support of the bill, saying the current protections under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration only provide a 30-day window for individuals to file a claim, which can take more than two years to process. In 2021, OSHA dismissed 54% of reported claims and found less than 1% of claims to have merit.