Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator KC Becker has persuaded the Biden administration to send $328 million to Colorado to clean up our air and reduce carbon emissions by 173 million metric tons by 2050. She’s putting our tax dollars where the need is.

The large grant from EPA is a continuation of the pressure Becker has placed on the state to clean up oil and gas development, our state’s only energy refinery, Suncor, and methane emissions from coal mines and landfills. The $328 million, distributed to the Colorado Energy Office and the Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) will also support carbon reduction from commercial and residential real estate and prepare the state for a clean-energy economy.

Becker has stepped in where the state has dragged its feet. Our emissions controls aren’t where they need to be as the state is in serious violation of federal air quality standards, and not just because smoke from Canada has descended on us. Becker is now providing resources to remove the “we don’t have the money” excuse that pervades the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) and the state’s Air Pollution Control Division (APCD), whose responsibilities are to ensure clean air for us to breathe.

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So far, ECMC and APCD have failed to meet the missions developed in SB19-181, “Protect Public Welfare Oil and Gas Development,” and in HB19-1261, “Climate Action Plan to Reduce Pollution.” Both bills had then Speaker of the House KC Becker as main House sponsor.

The principal premise of SB19-181 is to prevent “the surface impacts of oil and gas operations in a reasonable manner in order to… protect and minimize adverse impacts to public health, safety, and welfare and the environment.” The legislation directs the ECMC to develop regulations that change the commission’s previous job of encouraging the development of oil and gas to regulating oil and gas operations to ensure maximum protection of the public and environment.

The ECMC has taken a full, four-plus years to create regulations that sort of, a little bit, put the pinch on oil and gas operations. But as our summer’s air quality shows, whatever the rules are currently, they aren’t up to the task.

Right now, ECMC is in the middle of rule setting for monitoring pollution emissions to determine their “cumulative impact” on public health. Until this point, the ECMC has relied on “Sixteen Objective Criteria” for permitting oil and gas well drilling. The criteria were developed by Jeff Robbins, an attorney who is director of the ECMC. At this point, only five drilling proposals have been denied while more than 7,000 new well permits have been allocated since SB19-181 became law.

Currently, well emission measurements occur through each operator’s self-monitoring. If self-monitoring worked, Suncor would not have pollution “accidents” and unprotected residents’ homes wouldn’t blow up from gas leaks.

As part of its rule-making, the ECMC rejected the fully litigated definition of cumulative impact monitoring stated in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA provides a common basis for identifying cumulative effects. They are “effects on the environment that result from the incremental effects of the action when added to the effects of other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable actions regardless of what agency or person undertakes such actions. Cumulative effects can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time.”

ECMC’s cumulative monitoring rules require drillers to prepare a “cumulative impact analysis” for large scale operations only. This version ignores the impact of the accumulation of minor effects into large impacts affecting public health.

At a minimum, cumulative impact analysis should be conducted by the state, not drillers. Industry-developed field data that supports the non-accumulation of deleterious pollution impacts should be treated with skepticism and tested against independent, state-sponsored impact studies.

The state should hold off on new permits (7,000 in four years is a lot of permitting!) until it can independently assess direct and indirect effects of fossil fuel development, adding these impacts together to arrive at cumulative effects including operations from small to large.

The APCD and its Air Quality Control Commission should be involved in assessments at the front end of these cumulative impact analyses. It’s too late for the division and its commission to make pollution prevention recommendations after the fact of completed permitting.

The money EPA Administrator Becker has brought to the state should supply funds for cumulative impact analyses conducted by independent scientists, not industry actors. If a portion of the large grant is not allocated for these essential responsibilities, then Becker should consider her options for 2026. That year will be the end of Gov. Jared Polis’s term and the beginning of another governor’s administration in the state.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.