 Okay, without any further ado. We have Jonah Goose is going to be join it joining us He's made a video recording. I'm gonna say I've got him kind of got this kind of convoluted up here, but It's great to be with you Thank you so much for joining us today and so great to be able to speak to you on such an important topic one That I am deeply passionate about not only as a legislator, but as a father and as a citizen as well It is no secret that the impacts of the climate crisis are at our doorstep That climate change is here now that it is happening today in our communities in the last year alone Our communities have witnessed record-setting and catastrophic wildfires Fatal flash floods and the worst air quality in the world Let me repeat the worst air quality in the world We can't afford to wait any longer for bold urgent action on climate change As many of you know, I have a young daughter. She just turned three She doesn't yet understand the scale of these crises or the profound impact that humans will have on our environment But she does understand the beauty of Colorado's outdoor places Of clean air of clean water We must ensure that the next generation my daughter's generation is not left with a world of frequent natural disasters and untenable air quality So question becomes how do we do it? Well? One solution that I believe will have a tremendously positive impact is the 21st century climate conservation board Our plan would put hundreds of thousands of people to work restoring our lands and communities and tackling the climate crisis It is a bold proposal to meet the confluence of challenges that our communities are experiencing Western droughts, flash floods, wildfires and the existential threat of climate change We're taking a page really at an FDR's playbook We want to reimagine the conservation core of the 1930s, which literally built red rocks Roads trails and campgrounds in Rocky Mountain National Park countless other projects throughout our state and throughout our country We want to make major investments in community resilience to protect watersheds to mitigate future flooding to restore our forests and help suppress wildfires and more This proposal will meet our communities where they are and provide the people and funds to complete these important projects It really is a once in a generation investment in our forests and in a new diverse workforce to prepare us for the future The original triple C as some of you may know Employed with three million Americans across the country building parks building trails fighting wildfires restoring farmland It's worked before And it can work again We have the opportunity to create good paying jobs build a diverse workforce and strengthen career pathways By making bold investments in clean energy and in climate resiliency in our public lands As many of you know, we've been working closely with president biden and the committee chairs in the house and the senate To ensure that the 3.5 trillion dollar build-back better plan that we are poised to pass this fall will move us towards a clean energy future The president biden's build-back better plan is a critical step again in making a once in a generation investment in our climate By establishing for example an energy efficiency and clean energy standard the first time in history of the federal government And expanding and extending clean energy and electric vehicle tax credits The bottom line is this we cannot wait Another month another year another decade to put people to work in stopping the climate crisis and our kids can't either It's time to pass a bold policy that will build a nation powered by clean energy creating millions of good paying jobs and tackling climate change at the same time Luckily with the build-back better agenda being crafted in congressional committees as we speak We have an opportunity in the next eight weeks to pass the most transformational wide reaching climate action legislation in decade We have to get it done And i'm so proud to represent a district and a state with such dedication to getting it done To ultimately solving this crisis through action And i'm very grateful For the role that each and every one of you are playing to engage and educate yourselves around these issues and to move the needle forward One step at a time Please note that my offices are always open to your calls and to hear your ideas Your suggestions your proposals to work in partnership with you to solve this problem I'm here to represent you in your values And I want to hear your solutions So thank you again for having me and thank you so much for the long month climate committee for organizing a wonderful event I look forward to seeing you all in person very soon Take care Okay If I can get this done Being the techie that I am here Thank you so much to joe are I didn't introduce him properly. He is our second congressional district representative in the u.s. Congress, so That was great to hear from him next up we have a panel of our local legislators and we have Representative Karen McCormick Colorado state senator sonia hakes-luis And state house representative tracy bernett. So they're going to speak on to speak to you on the on a panel And first up is karen mccormick. So thank you for coming karen Let me see. I think I have to i'm going to pull up your See here I'm going to share my screen again No, you're going to pull up your own right Okay, no, I don't I it's all me. It's You're good. We're good to go. All right. Thank you. It is the me show you get to look at me and not slide So I apologize for that It's fine. We're glad to have you well, thank you for um keeping me in the loop and um inviting me to this I really do appreciate it and Good to see so many people that are on this this call Um, I'm sorry. I missed the other one. Uh, I wanted to give an update on Some of the things I have been working on and maybe just a little forecast For the future. I feel so fortunate that um similarly to representative bernett. We had our very first legislative session last January through june And really didn't have the ramp up time before that january We kind of had a month to get ready. So having this six four to six month period of Time has been such a gift And um, just been able to explore so many different things so as far as um, what i'm looking to Bring forward this next legislative session a lot of it is still in the works, of course, because we're in the midst of it in fact, I just had Another meeting with folks at the colorado energy office today specifically in regards to the greenhouse gas reduction roadmap And know that there's another kind of updated version of that coming out soon with um new not necessarily new targets, but new ideas on how to Reach those targets. And so i'm in constant communication With them. Um, and they will have some legislative priorities that will come Later in october that I will be Circled in with and hopefully be helpful to to get our state On this just hurry up on this this roadmap. Um They the the goals that we have set forth to Significantly reduce these emissions under hb 19 12 or 261 The 26% reduction by 2025 and 50% reduction by 2030 Um, and then really going forward to make sure we meet that challenging 90% reduction by 2050 um The more I learn the more I learn that this is an all of the above approach kind of similar to what Representative nagoos outlined a little bit. We have to do everything in every sector All the time It's that urgent and we know that the majority of our emissions Come from the transportation sector and and the production of electricity sector and the production of electricity sector certainly has A more straightforward path I guess to Implement those reductions whereas the transportation sector There's so many of us involved like all these individuals all these vehicles It's it's a It's a large issue, but it's also a little more complicated because so much is involved and um To achieve that lower grit that lower carbon grid and and working on electrifying not only State trucks small vehicle small lightweight trucks and vehicles That are personally owned What came to came to my interest um this this summer was those working on getting our Getting for the proposal to mandate that our state any diesel trucks diesel vehicles in our state Have to go to a biodiesel blend And finding out the difference in what gets put into our air From straight petroleum diesel versus biodiesel is truly impactful and I'm like I said at the beginning. I'm still exploring this but This is a way for us to Our goal is to electrify the transportation sector completely and the kind of the the Ramp to get there, you know, it is Longer than I want it to be and so meanwhile what else can we do? And this is a great kind of bridge. What else can we do to lower those emissions now? to help um Get these Volatile organic compounds out of the air This is something that we can do in the near term As we get to more and more electrification of our transportation sector Just to give you an idea of the carbon intensity score of these two products petroleum diesel has Carbon intensity score of 102 Whereas biodiesels down at 26 um The other great thing to so biodiesel and biomass diesel products can reduce these emissions greenhouse gas by 86 percent and has reduced emissions by over 27 million metric tons In california just in the last 10 years And in one year alone almost 7 million metric tons. So it's really been a proven way to um on your on your way to electrification do this now And the reason it needs to be mandated is that if it is especially on the Non-attainment zones in our state so denver kind of where we live These non-attainment zones to really help those communities that are impacted The the greatest um it also can help us reduce our methane production How am I doing on time? um Yeah, I think you're probably at the end of the time Karen. Okay. Anyway, it'll also reduce methane because so much of this can be produced made from waste fats Cooking oil animal tallow crop residues all those things by a tremendous amount. So not only are we getting Carbon out of the air. We're reducing Methane in our air as well. So Looking forward to sharing more as I get further down the road Well, thank you so much for all that you do I'm really glad to have you as our legislator and we're looking forward to the next year to see how everything But it all happens. So thank you so much uh next up is Uh senator sonia hakas lewis representing the our 17th district Hi District 17 love it. That's the L town longmont lewisville lafayette Um just a super shout out to you and karen And the whole team and some of my favorite folks exactly, uh, ken wilson, nancy, york, athea weiss jonepack, uh, suzie Hidalgo, I love all of y'all. So a quick shout out to you. I'm super honored that you Invited me to be a part of this and my excuse me for my background. I am In the middle of a very huge healthcare Policy conference and so they I have my background saved because I'm presenting every day at that large conference We couldn't do it in person this year But anyway, I'm very honored to talk about what we've been doing To affect climate change and where I see us going As those of you many of you already know this but Climate change really affects our bipop community in some ways much more than Other other folks and as a member of the latinx caucus at the capital I'm so proud to work with our caucus because we have done specific bills to address the impact Of climate change and poor air quality on our communities of color in colorado We'd have some new data About that so um, and this was just reported I'm happy to put a reference up if you don't know about it. I haven't heard about it But it's reported from Christy Richardson at cdphg our colorado department of public health and environment Of the eight state run air quality monitors We have 92 days out of 242 days this year Or communities of color. I'm mostly talking about globeville talking about alaria swan swanson swansville and around national jewish That out of 92 out of 242 days. It was the worst pollution Ever in those communities and in april 2021 29 days out of 30 days of the month Surpassed all other areas of the state for the highest fine particle pollution so What cdphg Because of bills that we Have done and funding that we have given them Is they are going to be doing more Community air monitoring so that we can hold These polluters and we all know that suncore is one of the worst Accountable we've now attached because of several legislative bills that we've run in the last three years And and three years is about the time when our latinx caucus really started getting into gear On these environmental issues. We've been able to institute much higher Air pollution fines Um, and and let me put a fine point on this with the fine particles is the impact When you think about what's happening with us in covet It the whole situation is really uh exacerbated and what happens is the fine particles Those of you that are healthcare professionals already know this but the fine particles go deep into the lung and cause the asthma and cause The exacerbations of COPD and cardiac complications And the kicker is that these areas where we see more pollution What do we see we see higher rates of covet hospitalizations? So as an example in these higher pollution areas you have 13.4 hospitalizations for thousand people Compared to wash park where there's only 1.4 hospitalizations per thousand people if anybody's you know really interested in more of that that information I can totally give you the links where I see us going is more Holding polluted more accountable. I think we'll see more bills around that I was the house sponsor of the biodiesel bill that uh, Karen previously mentioned we had to put that on hold because of covet I do see it coming back because we like to see a bridge between uh for trucks between uh fossil fuel until we can get more electric So I see us doing a lot more work This is not you know, this is a climate crisis and everyone all the representatives from boulder county know this and we have our Numbers who agree with us are growing at the capital We had republican support on some of these bills and I think that that will continue to grow So I'll stop there. I don't want to take up too much time and keep keeping us on track But I'm happy to answer any questions that anyone wants to put in the chat and thank you very much for inviting me and thinking of me Thank you so much for coming and thank you for your information and thank you for all you do We're just so happy that you are our senator. So thank you so much. It's really nice to have you Uh, next up is uh, Colorado state house of representative tracy bernett Representing the 12th district My thing cut off. You got it. You got it Well, I think I'm going to share my screen and put your power point up. So let me okay. Thank you And I'm just going to start. Thank you all for inviting me. I'm super excited to be here at talking with you and I'm just going to say it has been an absolute banner year for um Environmental legislation, especially climate change legislation. So if you can just move to the next slide I'm going to quickly go through the the bills that I was involved in this year The first one house bill 1238. This is basically a gas energy efficiency bill for buildings and it You know natural gas is methane a very powerful greenhouse gas And so this bill is expected to reduce the co2 You know equivalent of 800,000 tons over the next 10 years and save Colorado less residents 6 to 700 million dollars In gas utility costs. There's also provision to help Income qualified residents with their weatherization. So they are they are burning less natural gas and they are saving money and also what's really Groundbreaking about this bill is that it factors in the long term impacts of climate change for generations in such a way that it really fosters our residents and businesses to transition to clean heat technologies even faster. It's a fabulous bill The next one is a house bill 1303 Actually, I presented it new york climate week yesterday because this is a groundbreaking first in the nation bill of its kind in terms of the scope And what I just put it in You know, why don't we care about things like green construction materials? Well, if concrete and steel concrete and steel represent 14 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide And cement which is that glue in concrete were a nation It would be the third largest Emitter in the country in the world. I'm sorry the third largest largest greenhouse gas Emitter in the world. So we really do care about Greening up our construction materials. So what this this bill does it directs the state architect and the Department of Transportation to use greener construction Materials in their state funded buildings and transportation projects But along the way it reduces not only greenhouse gas emissions that are used to produce these materials It reduces air pollution right here in colorado if fosters recycling It fosters using green energy and it also You can it fosters carbon sequestration You can reduce The amount of greenhouse gas emissions used to create these materials by 30 or 50 30 to 50 percent with no cost impact It's a huge opportunity for us to really make a dent in In meeting our greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals My next bill very quickly House bill 1009 is basically providing energy efficiency Loans and grants for low and moderate income housing affordable affordable housing developments By improving their you know energy efficiency and also reducing the transportation costs For those the for the people who can lease to forward to spend money and in time and transportation If you could go to the next slide, please Okay, these are the other bills that I was involved in this year SB 272 Funds a lot of the public utility commission's work on many many environmental bills And I did and it also has a some wonderful language about really driving Equal investments in Disproportional impacted communities. That's something that senator hawkes-luis talked about and I just got to call out one thing Many people have heard about senator winters Senate bill 200 and gosh what happened to that Well, one of the bills that this bill funds is hospital 12 66 That's a disproportionately impacted communities It took care of three of the five sectors. We're going after in Senate bill 200. So we got a lot done in that area My next bill Senate bill 230 It provides 40 million dollars of stimulus money to finance a green bank And this is this is a green bank that basically leverages public to private dollars five to ten times All for renewable energy projects There's also stimulus money for residents and commercial buildings to Get low cost energy efficiency loans as well as help with EV charging stations My next bill To six senate bill 264 first in the nation First in the nation clean heat plans for all Colorado Utilities and what this does is that all colorado utilities must measure The greenhouse gas emissions associated with their building customers and Reduce those greenhouse gas emissions by 22 by 2030. This is just a phenomenal bill And i'm so hard to be part of it. This is also part of sb 200s Bill this is like going after the fourth of the five sectors that um sb 200 was trying to was was going after And finally, I'm just going to mention that Senator caucus louis and representative McCormick, and I also did senate bill 235 which helps with Renewable energy and ag efficiency programs for agriculture or you know ranchers and farmers and then finally My bill or a bill senate bill 108 was not only a pipeline safety bill, but it also Required reductions in methane leaks another green of course another greenhouse gas Powerful greenhouse gas emitters. So next okay, so now next sex. This is stuff. You're really interested You know, this is this is a kind of a slide of where a greenhouse gas emissions like bisector look right now And i'm just going to give you a little peek into things that i'm working really hard on right now air quality As many of you know, uh, this is near and dear to my heart because my son nearly died of an asthma attack when he was a toddler and um, and so You know, we passed a lot of good great legislation in air quality a couple years ago And I am uh, want to build on that progress and I am talking to a lot of scientists and policy experts to identify Best approaches best approaches in addressing our horrific Worst in the nation air quality both in the short term and in the long term i'm also continuing to work on building buildings in terms of um, reducing and eliminating our our dependence on fossil fuels used to heat our buildings And I'd have to say buildings is the hardest nut to crack It's going to take the longest to decarbonize and so I'm continuing to look at ideas in that area Also agriculture, this is an area, you know, you know, we do have there's things like a methane emissions from Agriculture and also i'm very interested in carbon sequestration And then finally but not least of all grid resiliency When you look at our wildfires the floods we've had and what has happened around the nation This is exceptionally important and I have been learning that the most resilient and cost effective grid is one that's combining utility Scale renewable energy with micro grids. So that's all I'm going to say on that and uh final slide If you guys ask what can you do To move us on this path to uh, you know zero emissions future And I just want to put something in your head I learned this summer 50 of the path forward to net carbon emissions Is energy efficiency? So these are the things you can do and start considering first reduce or eliminate your methane i.e your natural gas usage in your homes by weatherizing By managing your demand by smart thermostats and smart appliances Use more efficient gas appliances and ideally think about switching from your gas cooktop to an induction stove And also think about the you know, if your air conditioner is getting kind of old think about Heat pumps because heat pumps can both heat and cool your house And also if you're going through a remodeling or a building a new home Prewire that home for electric vehicles and heat pump technology The other thing you can do is reduce and eliminate your oil You know your the gas you use to power your vehicle by using more gas efficient car and of course You know look at buying a new or used electric vehicle and I just want to leave you one thought I figured out that my electric vehicle, which I drive about 10,000 miles a year I I'm almost up on a year right now It the quote-unquote fuel costs of that car is $100 a year I can drive that car 10,000 miles on $100 a year Just by being smart by it being an electric vehicle because they're much more efficient about how they use You know the energy but also because I charge it in off time So my final thing I'd just like to say is as you what you can do Advocate and educate yourself Educate yourself on how you can do things better and advocate to your community members your elected officials your utilities So I hope I haven't gone over too much, but I had a lot to say So thank you so much Well, thank you. I know we've got good time right now. So you you did great. We have plenty of time thank you so much for for Yeah, all that great information and we're going to borrow some of your ideas That you had and put it on our On our our little we have a little sheet. We're going to hand out to everyone We're going to send it out to everyone who Registered so we'll take some of your ideas because we were going to put some of those ideas on anyway so thank you so much and thank you for all you do and Last year was a fantastic year for all of you and I hope this next year is even better So I'm excited to see what next year is going to bring for you Okay, I'm going to Turn this over now to Mitzi nicoletti and she's going to introduce Andrew. So go ahead Mitzi Thank you Lynette. Um I have the pleasure of introducing Andrew closer with the colorado filled advocate with earthworks Andrew is very passionate about environmental justice and community organizing He's determined to apply his passion to the critical work here in colorado to ensure That the state and local governments Prioritize public health The environment and of course our future I got to meet up with Andrew a week and a half ago and at a homeowner's House that lives just a few hundred feet from the Nightwell, which is located at Union Reservoir here in Longmont And I was able to witness Andrew at his work And at the same time experience what it's like for someone to live only a few hundred feet From a fracking site And I will say in less than 30 minutes all of us started getting a headache So right now Andrew is going to share some of the images From several of his visits Welcome Andrew Thank you one second. Let me make sure I'm sharing my screen There we go. All right So as thank you Mitzi and as Mitzi said, my name is Andrew Closter. I'm the colorado field advocate with earthworks Um, I think at this point you're all pretty familiar with my face if you've been tuning into these webinars because I've been providing periodic updates on our fieldwork around Longmont Oil and gas pollution that we've been observing over the last couple of months With uh, I think pretty specific focus on the Cub Creek night pad as mitzzi mentioned I think it's kind of at the top of everyone's mind in that area right now They are should be wrapping up their completions their fracking phase Relatively soon. Um, it's been going on since late july early august and on the last webinar if you tuned in I Sort of made a promise that I would definitely go out and look at the site and come back on this webinar and share the visuals with you Are all so I have visuals to share One thing I will just quickly preface. I mean, I think most I recognize most of the participants But for those who haven't been able to tune into the past couple of webinars don't know what earthworks does We use ogi or optical gas imaging cameras. So these are the exact same cameras that The industry uses regulators use to detect pollution leaks in their case But pollution at oil and gas facilities. Um, and when we're talking about this pollution, we're talking very specifically About methane and vocs volatile organic compounds. These are pollutants that are Invisible to the naked eye, but we can see them with this technology. So that is what earthworks does That's what we've been doing around Longmont And so on the next couple of slides, I'm going to share the visuals show you what's coming off of the night pad that you're not seeing with your naked eye so let me So this is um from september third So a couple of weeks ago now On the left hand side of the screen is a digital camera photo So the naked eye view of the pad you can see the sound wall up and all of these photos and videos that i'm going to share are from This resident that mitzi mitzi mentioned this home that's about 600 feet away from this pad so digital camera naked eye view on the left on the right hand side you have an animated gift showing What we see what I see when I look through the ogi camera and on the third you can see this This is these pollutants are probably from combusted sources just given the characteristic of that plume On the left hand side you can actually see maybe a little bit of if you look really closely There's some visible opaque emissions coming off from behind the sound wall So probably generators or engines that are running during the fracking process But in the gift you can see as it pans up as it tracks up A lot of these emissions are not being burned off. There's a lot of on combusted emissions that are coming off of this pad This is on the ninth so just about a week later september ninth again Naked eye view on the left on the right hand side animated gift This was much more significant of an event much much more pollution You can see this just massive plume that's coming up from behind the sound wall When we're filming fracking pads, it can be hard to identify the source obviously because of the sound walls up I'm not really sure personally What this plume where the source was this doesn't seem to me like it's the same From what we saw on the last slide it seems like more of a release of some kind Don't really know i'm going to be probably following up with apcd now that this video is ready to be shared with them Because this was a very concerning Plume and as you can see as the camera tracks up It just takes up the entire view of the camera as it is going up into the atmosphere and again Important to recognize the fact that this is not just often a field Somewhere there are homes literally surrounding this pad the reservoir is You know just to the south of this pad So these pollutants are Have an immediate health concern as well as the climate larger climate concern and then finally One last visual of the night pad. This is from just the next day after that last video was filmed and again you can see pretty dramatic Pretty dramatic imagery. This this again is probably similar to the september 3rd from combusted sources from generators running on The site, but you can see just how much of that pollution is not being combusted How much of it is still entering into the atmosphere that we can track with the ogi camera? And then I have one last visual I want to share and this is Maybe a kind of a disheartening note to end on but I think it's sort of a reality check as to where we're at And I think how far we still need to go So this is actually not in anywhere near longmont. This is in baroon field, colorado and this is from 2019 So this is the last time in 2019 earthworks was filming a lot of new fracking pads that were going in and broom field and eerie It was kind of the last time. There was a lot of Fracking in the front range and then covid came around things slowed down a bit There was the rule makings last year and now things have picked up again This year with the night pad and with quite a few other pads up and down the i-25 corridor And the reason i'm sharing this is as a point of comparison if you look at the visuals that we were filming in 2019 Um, I personally don't see a whole lot of difference between these visuals and the visuals that I've been filming at the night pad In fact, in some ways I'd say some of the stuff that I filmed at the night pad is kind of worse than some of the stuff We were seeing in 2019 and I point this out not to discourage all of us But to again provide a sort of reality check I mean, we just went through this marathon rulemaking process at the co gcc at the aq cc The intent of these new rules that were adopted this year was to mitigate the harm from this Industry mitigate the harm to the health to climate and we've made some significant progress the new rules that were adopted are definitely a step in the right direction But again, you know, we can see I'll just go back a slide We're you know on the ground the reality is not enough has changed this industry is still extraordinarily harmful Extraordinarily impactful and we still have a lot of work to do Um, so with that, I think I will stop my Sharing and hand it off to the next speakers Thank you so much. Andrew. That was really interesting and very enlightening and thank you for all the work that you do I really appreciate it We put this up We put this next in the agenda because we're going to go now to locally and we're going to listen to our local representatives Uh, Marta lochman is our boulder county commissioner representing district two And so uh, you're up next and uh in this panel is going to be uh, suzi hidalgo fairing the longmont city councilwoman from ward three So first is marta go ahead marta All right. Buenos tardes. Buenos noches. Good evening everybody My name is marta lochman boulder county commissioner district two. I live here in longmont and represent, of course, our other 330,000 residents Here in boulder county and I am going to see if I can Share my screen. We did it successfully a bit ago. So I'm gonna just hope for the bus here And it looks like I've got capability so someone can Just let me know if it's up and you can see the slideshow Looks good. I've got a couple different screens here doing different things. Thank you for that so um Just pleased to be here and thanks for inviting the county commissioners To participate in this conversation. We talk about local action. This is really This is a really critical one for boulder county and I will just share Because it's not in the slide and I don't want to forget that we did Bring on a new policy analyst to the boulder county commissioner's office This year since january 12th when both commissioner levy and I um joined the board and so that is a really exciting step that we'll talk a little bit about what that means for us from a local Action and work that we're going to be able to do so we'll go through a few of the slides And I'm going to try and get in the chat the same time and share some of the links as well So this is just some information about boulder county involvement in the in the room thing at both and Let's see here. This is So just to give you an idea. Oops hang on because I've got Notes on one computer and then showing differently on a different screen, of course That's what I get for trying to respond to message at the same time a few minutes ago Yeah, and you can put take out after you're done Speaking you can go ahead and put the links on after that. You don't have to have it right now We'll get them. We'll get them at the end of the Of the event and we'll put them all out then so oh, yeah. No, that's that's great Thank you That's not the that's not the issue. But thank you all right, so this one is just our The history and the rulemaking piece so that we will just want to talk about a little bit and share and I won't read through the slides Word for word because you'll have them and of course we can always forward this over there too but obviously boulder county is actively involved in a number of state actions and pushing for some of the increased pieces that We just heard about from some of our legislators We are working on local government coalition I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with the cc4 ca And that was some of the work started in boulder county So we'll get a chance to a little bit of a deeper dive in county's oil and gas action as Well here just related to air quality and climate But these are a couple of the pieces that that you can see on the screen that talk about c dot transportation transportation commission Currently involved in the rulemaking process addressing greenhouse gases from the transportation sector that somebody talked a little bit about some of the The legislation that they're working on in that area of moving from bio detail, I think Representative McCormack was talking about and some of those other pieces as well so we'll And then ozone we'll talk about here in a in a minute as well boulder county air monitoring study and I heard somebody talk about uh Doctor that left as well in just from a timing in a standpoint so for those of you who don't know and I think In a lot of times these conversations are to the choir and to folks who are really involved but in the In the optimism and the the enthusiasm that we might have new folks participating or learning or getting involved in boulder county Maybe some new residents and new neighbors Who aren't as active in the past and may not know the history I think it's helpful for folks to know that some of this monitoring study began in 2017 So it's work that boulder county has been really involved in and the commissioners just recently in the last two weeks Signed some new and updated funding in that contract that that really is connected with the work of boulder air That is funded with the boulder county sustainability tech So obviously our voters are also working on the same these same issues as well. There's a few links that are mentioned there And I would just encourage folks to use boulder county.org as a resource Some of the work that i've been doing just as a new commissioner in general from Internal pieces really working with all of our departments to figure out where we can be a little bit more Inviting a little bit more resource friendly a little bit more multimedia Etc. So and we're seeing those updates Throughout our website in different departments. So I would encourage you again to use that as a resource Partnering with the colorado state university and analyzing data really similar, right? And that goes back into that same history so same pieces that a lot of you are talking about as far as the vocs and The research the data those pictures that that andrew just shared or We should all be alarmed I think it is a really good reminder that the work needs to continue that we need to be vigilant that we need to be sharing this information out and And letting folks who aren't aware And who aren't part of this conversation who aren't here tonight digitally or watching online? How do we get to to to our neighbors and and share this information? So Messaging to the public in that same regard. We are these are some of the the different pieces and we'll just I'll just show you a few of the The messaging that is being shared To inform and provide actions because that's a little bit right educate How do we motivate how do we get people who might be interested and so that they can use it in their own? ads that they can use it in social media And and move it around so there's a couple of different just examples of the messaging Like I said, they were trying to include some different forms and different ways to get people interested and involved and connected in the public as you know Ozone action is so critical right now because of where we are Someone already talked a little bit about climate change and as someone talked about Really where we are as far as the weather and what that's doing for our summer ozone season Someone shared a little bit of data already. Unfortunately. We experienced a record setting summer this year Which I've all of us know With 75 action alerts so far and the warm weather obviously is not over. We're still experiencing that the Denver Metro Front-range area has not met the EPA's national ambient air quality standards for ozone for too many years and And we know that and colorado is now working on the new plans to meet federal requirements under the pre-nearact And boulder county is really involved in that work and we'll continue that So again adding our new policy analysts that can focus on this Is really helpful and we will be able to not just focus on local regs and local policy but also do more state and also national With her expertise and in that addition to our team. So that will be Really exciting for us as we start working on those types of policies now getting prepped for 2022 like our legislators who are already sharing this evening Volta county is actively involved in this process to to push for tighter controls in those different areas those in action day alerts The same piece. So we're working on those same social media Opportunities to to get folks involved and just give some other places to share New county oil and gas regulations. So this is obviously folks on this call are familiar with SB 181 And for us in the commissioner's office, we receive emails and calls which everybody is welcome to send an email commissioners at boulder county org with any pieces of you know information or wanting to just check in on Hey, is this county is the city? Where is where is this? What are you all doing? Have you sent a letter we get a lot of those types of requests And it's helpful because every once while there'll be a policy or some a piece that we haven't yet weighed in on We can bring our policy team to to that their attention to give us some some advisement and do some research This one certainly Article 12 is one of those that we get questions on quite frequently. So there's just a Quick piece in there as far as what the other piece that we've been working on is around the fines for leaks and failure to find or repair them and Lobbying with our team and us as commissioners to The session that folks were talking about boulder county efforts at the cogcc In 2020 we participated heavily in the mission change Which was a redraft of almost the entire set of regulations and these changes included increased emissions controls and monitoring throughout All stages of development along with enhanced authority and roles from local government this year were involved in the financial Assurances Real making that indirectly includes greater regulation of pollution and emissions through financial control COGCC has increased its inspection staff and procedure But we believe there's always room for more resources to expand on pollution prevention and control and there'll be Just this piece residents can help residents can work together and we're continuing to do that work as as In collaborating with and supporting our legislators as well Some of these other efforts Boulder County has been involved in many stakeholder groups and role making's we have testified it I got an opportunity to testify This session with the aqcc to tighten controls on the railing gas industry and will continue to do that there's A link in there people want to jot down. I was I can throw it in the chat Or I think Lynette said she could send it out Most of you may be familiar with the cdph e and that particular comment period And So we'll touch on a little bit about county climate litigation I think that's that's some of the most calls we get are about what you know, what's happening right now someone already mentioned sencor um And the county is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against sencor and exon demanding that they pay For the anticipated cost the county will face for reacting to climate change impacts And this this case is still in its early stages, but there's a little bit of information about that I'm sure some of you know the history about it, but I won't read that full slide to you Reporting health concerns. We've been getting a lot of calls about this In and this is just a good again kind of informing and educating folks want to talk about all things climate There was an oil spill. I'm sure y'all are aware of just maybe three months ago earlier this summer And we got a lot of calls immediately about who is that who takes care of it? Who can we call and public health responded to find out where that was and what land it really was on? What was the cleanup going to be et cetera? So there's a couple of those Websites school numbers that type of contact information Because again folks need the information need the education Need to be informed because those of us that are here right now We're here because we care about the climate because we don't have to be convinced that we are out of time We don't have to be convinced that we need bold action. We don't have to be convinced That that all of us as legislators and local folks and representatives and and Our nation National leaders we all have to be working together Who's missing are the folks that aren't here in this call who don't have this in link? Who wouldn't have been invited to school building or wherever these meetings typically are held? Just participating over the last few years and so that's our task That's the opportunity we all have is to share this information with those who who don't know and who aren't aware And who've never seen those videos that that Andrew shared with us tonight because those are the images that will hopefully get our Other community members involved in all the different ways that everybody shared about tonight. So thank you so much and I did Share with Lynette that I am leading the community engagement For the American Rescue Plan Act and our 63.3 million dollars that the boulder county will be receiving That money is specifically to address Covid impacted sectors of our community And I know there's folks Participating that would like to give their input and would like to share where they would like those funds to be spent So I will put that in the chat as well and and encourage folks to get online at bouldercountysurvey.com It's a quick survey. It's five minutes It's our initial phase of this project and this process And you can just you can see the youtube if you missed the bilingual virtual town hall that we had two weeks ago Just share about that information again That's really really important resource for the 43 folks that are on tonight and the people that are watching later That's an opportunity when we talk about how do we get financial relief? And that's just one of the buckets of funding that's coming from the american rescue plan act and there separately will be infrastructure money when we talk about Climate and the different connections people have already talked about Tonight, how do we use those funds in a way that are really going to create equitable outcomes for everybody? So thank you for the invitation Appreciate it and i'm looking forward to the conversation Thank you very much. Thanks for coming and thanks for all you do If you could stop your sharing. Oh, good. You got it. Okay. All right. Well, thank you so much I really appreciate it and thank you for all you do Next up is susie hidalgo firing long month city councilwoman from ward three Hello, good evening Good evening. So I do have some slides That i'm going to share and it won't be much. I know we're we're running out of We're okay. We're okay I just saw the 730 and I started panicking. Yeah, we're okay. Okay. So let me put this Okay, and so And then let me put it at present It's an interesting view. Hold on. Let me move this out of the way And here we go so Um, hopefully you all can see the slides So this is just some of the highlights of what What the city of longmont has been engaged with what we're what we're working on in addressing just climate Actions but all you know Community behavior. So just things that that the community can do As a whole to kind of change to change habits Um, and so and how we as a city can best best support those So you can look at um what we're doing the ev the transportation energy water adaptation resilience Waste and economic vitality. So, you know, we can I don't need to read read all of those But you can you can look at those and so, you know, I kind of want to go back Looking at the waste part the green school green star schools That that is primarily with what the school district is doing I know my school indian peeps elementary is a green star school and um So we we connect with with the green star program the and the county But looking as a city how we can can help support facilitate and get more schools schools on board so really it is a community community effort a group effort of multiple organizations coming together to to address these issues and you know and making the transition from gas vehicles to to more gas efficient or ideally EVs and so opening up the opportunities for people to get more More access to um charging charging stations and what have you and Let me go on to and some of the things I had talked to with some of our people folks from um the longmont downtown authority and the economic The economic development partnership that we have in longmont is looking at ways that we can help support businesses who do use um Clean clean energy or more renewable energy in their businesses You know, we we have all these opportunities for for businesses who are starting up to get receive incentives So let's start tapping into those practices in um In businesses that that utilize those um That utilize more renewable energy In there within their their businesses um, and so this was from a slide that we received Yesterday during our council our budget report and kind of looking at what we're doing citywide and what our goals are for next For next year and put the money that we're putting into Continuing our air quality quality monitoring looking at transportation energy waste diversion And um and even with with the um and looking at community too Uh, you know a lot of times, you know, you know, we look at the um economic factors socioeconomic status within our community and ensuring that that our lower income have access to the same um You know the same opportunities to use renewable energy with and composting in their um in their daily lives so um And then i'm going to move this on um, and so something I do want to share is you know, we do have two stations with the um Longmont air quality um testing our data collection sites just like as um, mark the our commissioner low chameen mark the low chameen had commented earlier The what boulder reservoirs doing, you know, we're looking at what um, we have two sites here in longmont that are checking the air quality One thing in our last it was in the august meeting. We saw that that the air pollutants they are going down as of last year based on those Based on the air quality update that we received so between the summer of 2020 to 2021 they they were a little lower at union reservoir There were some anomalies and some spikes over at the airport It was it was interesting to to see and you know really trying wanting to identify You know, one of my my goals is looking at some of these anomalies where they're coming from Something I found that was really fascinating in um in a Presentation that I heard from dr. Helmig was how Geologically where we sit in boulder in longmont in boulder county is we're kind of in the spot where where this pollutants and and um poor air quality just kind of fester or they come and sit over over our area and So it was So even if we it within our city decide to you know, we cut out these all these um vehicles that create these These very toxic transmissions in the air emissions in the air We still are you know, experiencing the um the outcomes and the Downfalls of what's happening in weld county and other parts You know further out east because that air just kind of comes and sits over Over us and so I do watch very closely. I have a son, especially son with asthma and When the air quality is bad We you know, you can definitely feel it emergency room visits and Asthma, you know flare-ups. So we do we do look carefully at the What the boulder air is what his work is reporting that data as well as I have an app on my phone I'm sure a lot of you do but it's that air quality The air now app where I'm able to check and see what the air quality is to To kind of you know, he'll prep before he goes maybe take his nebulizer before he goes out When the air quality is pretty pretty bad um, and then the other thing that We have through the city and I just wanted to to share a A little screenshot of what what it looks like from From people visiting the website and what you can do to search to go to the city website site Search the air quality and you can find links to reports presentations and other resources and So let me move on to there and Oops trying to get out of that There we go And I'll go ahead and stop my sharing Oh, here we go And um, and so aside from that other um, you know other things that I'm working on So I sit on the archive the boulder county resource advisory conservation advisory Board and we're really looking we're taking a deep delve in looking at equity And ensuring that other members of our community have You know who typically aren't engaged in um in recycling composting taking making um those efforts and And who who don't who lack the opportunities to engage in those efforts to to reduce our greenhouse emissions We're working together to to build inequity Subcommittee and we're reaching out with other folks who sit on the board we are So so we just kind of got that work kicked off and kind of addressing What are some of the obstacles challenges? What are some things you need from from our subcommittee to help bring this this work forward? Um, you know, we look at um environmental justice factors that would ensure that people who are typically um vulnerable to you know people with health conditions who are vulnerable to um To poor air quality, you know to make sure that they they have the resources and the access to um One to make a change and two to be able to identify, you know When the air is bad how to monitor and how to be an active and um engaged citizen In their in their own communities One of the you know looking at and I think I feel like I don't want to reiterate But so much of what I was wanting to say was already kind of mentioned throughout But um as far as you know, what you can do And I'm coming from you know, I I sit on my um my teacher's union board and we do a lot of community engagement or member engagement and how to you know reaching out to our elected officials and You know a lot of times what I've seen in emails Is you know these cop copy and paste and then you know sending these these email messages to our elected officials And now seeing it from the elected official side, you know, I'll look at one or two emails and it was like, oh, okay That's but then after you know four or five of the same I think it it I've kind of oh well, I've already heard that one of the things that we we have often done in our um union an advocacy for public education Is you know taking that okay? What are the bills that are going to need to pass? What are our demands? We tie it in with what are what we're experiencing? What are the um the the impacts of that? And um and then we kind of we go into our demands, but really personalizing that I think you know what folks are doing and coming forward to counsel sharing your experiences Sharing, you know, what what you are asking of us as elected officials to do I think that that just continuing to To voice those concerns is is is powerful and you know, I encourage everyone to To keep moving with that because there's you know, we it's no longer considered climate change. We are in a climate crisis and and we have to do We have to do so much more in order to to address those things but um, but um, you know I see with our city staff with our members of council that we are committed through work that we're doing through our climate action task force and looking at improving energy efficiency increasing renewable energy you know looking at increasing and putting funds into supporting vehicle electrification and making it possible for for the average resident in our in our community Thank you so much. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course Good information and thank you so much for all that you do on the city council I'm so glad that you're on the council and Um, it's just been great having you and I look forward to next year Of course, and if there's anything you need from me or anything, you know That you feel like okay, susie. You're missing the mark on this, you know, look into this You know, send me that stuff. I'm I'll put in my email in the chat because you know, okay teacher by day And I'm learning the ropes of elected officials Well, thanks so much again. I really appreciate it. Sure, of course Next up on our panel are attorneys and they are going to talk about legal policy and community actions and I don't know if you guys want to go one at a time if you want to go back and forth and Talk to talk together, but I'm going to introduce Mike foot He was formerly a member of the Colorado state house of representatives of the 12th house district and he's currently currently an attorney in Lafayette Uh, especially specializing in climate change and energy and natural resource matters utilizing His experience and perspective in in these kinds of agencies. So Uh, Joe Salazar is formerly a member of the Colorado state house of representatives district 31 He's an attorney and executive director of Colorado rising Uh, it's a grassroots organization working to protect our health safety quality of life In the future of our of our of our earth um So, uh, I'm going to let you guys decide who wants to go first If you want to bounce off of each other if however you want to do it welcome both of you Uh, thanks Lynette. I I um Joe and I I did a little paper scissors rock and uh came up with me going first and then Joe will go second I think but uh, they just go back and forth as well because We work together on a number of cases. Joe and I do Litigation and and otherwise and so, you know, we might be able to kind of Go back and forth or answer questions from that perspective But but I'll go first and just say a few things broadly. I think and then turn it over to Joe and see where he wants to go um after that but so the the the title of this seminar was simply what can we do? and um, you know, this is something that I've Committed to speaking at maybe three or four weeks ago. Maybe longer at this point. I think And I've been thinking about it kind of back of my mind ever since and you know, it should be a pretty easy question to answer But in fact for me At least from a former legislator now a full-time attorney perspective. It's not quite as easy like, you know as a legislator Um, I've been an attorney for eight for for 15 years. I was a legislative for eight years Now an attorney that that I just do environmental work. Uh, I you know for the environment as opposed to for the polluter and you know, I I found that Being a legislator was a lot easier to answer that question about what you can do because you know, I could look at a law And say well, that doesn't make any sense. Maybe we should change it And you know three quarters of the time. I think I was successful in that so as an attorney and not a legislator It's a lot harder to do that. We got to kind of play with the cards that were dealt Um, it's a different story, but as a legislator, I had to jump on late So I didn't hear what the local legislators said, but I'm assuming They kind of said many of the same things that anybody would which is get involved at the local level Um, talk to your legislators make sure you let them know Uh, what you want to see and really at the state level From the legislature a lot of times what constituents say Can actually become a bill that passes, which is the great thing about the state legislature. So That's great. Um, it's more complicated when it comes to just, you know, being an attorney and and fighting in this area but I'll talk a little bit about the co gcc and then a little bit about the air pollution control division and air quality control commission Um, because those are really the two main agencies particularly the apcd and a qcc for air quality Um, but I'll talk a little bit about that and and then hand it over to to joe. So You know the the the thing about legislation and I know that people have talked about Senate bill 181 already But the thing about legislation is that when you're reforming an agency a state agency in particular A lot of times the legislation is just the beginning Um, I mean, it's great to pass a big bill and certainly 181 was a big bill. It was a heavy lift But then, you know, it's the agency's job to actually turn the the act into action and um And sometimes that's a lot easier said than done The co gcc is like most agencies, you know, they're a big agency Um, although not as big as many in the state but big enough And change sometimes comes hard so, um What what we have seen I think Particularly through a mission change rulemaking was a pretty effective A citizen advocacy campaign And you know, I think during the actual mission change rulemaking which I think yandere kind of mentioned before when I just hopped on Was pretty epic It went on for about nine months or so or something like that Maybe it seemed like it was that long, but it was a long time and, um The industry was well represented as they always are through attorneys and experts and consultants and everybody else Um, but with the mission change rulemaking Um, the community was represented well also and I think that made a big difference Um, there was community members that came forth either through organizations or themselves and participated They told their stories about what it was like to work next to oil and gas operation And um, the commission ended up really falling on the side of the community I think, you know more often than not on some of the open questions even though the industry was Um, very powerful and argued and and very well paid and all that at that time So that's I think that's an example of how the community can make a difference in a concerted way And you know, rulemaking aren't done There's still plenty of rulemaking to happen at the co gcc There's the financial assurances bonding rulemaking that's happening now or we'll be starting back up soon They're going to take up cumulative impacts again. Probably I think next year Which will be another good place to make a difference either through an individual or through an organization um But then there's also just the straight implementation part of it and this is kind of what I see as an attorney Where the industry I think is working the refs a lot better Than the communities are and part of that is because the industry is very well resourced They have lots of people and attorneys that This is what they do all day is they kind of hang out at the commission And try to figure out where they can talk to folks and and you know, like I said kind of work the refs a little bit and also because You know what the industry does is they uh, they work their permits through the staff Um pretty much 95 of the way before they're even submitted So, you know by the time the public even gets a hold of the permits It's already about 95 baked through the staff And so this is an area where I think the communities can actually make a big difference by participating in that process You know, it's kind of like the process before the process So I just put it out there to kind of just give an idea of what i'm seeing as a weakness and and The environmental interests in the communities and can get into more detail later I guess about how to specifically do that or you can get in touch later And I can give you more details of what I might have in mind But I just wanted to put that out there to flag it for folks and and we're really getting to the point now Where the commission is actually approving Um new permits like new location permits They just approved the first couple of them just I think earlier this month And we're kind of getting into the meat of what mission change is really going to look like so I just wanted to kind of put that out there and you know, it's like I kind of look at environmental interests Um compared to the oil and gas industry It is a little bit the david versus the goliath, but you know david can win The other way I kind of look at it is that moving money ball, which maybe some of you have seen where her You know the general manager of the oakland is which has hardly any money He can still stack up against the new york yankees which has all the money in the world by doing it better And I think that we need to kind of look at it from that angle too Where we're never going to have the same kind of resources But we can work together collaborate share information And I think we can do it better and still make a difference under what mission change rules are In what 181 allows so one thing I'll mention also a specific interest to lawnmot is the cub creek operation the night pad I took a look at it and there from what I can see in the data There's been nine complaints filed with the co gcc almost all about noise since the beginning of august None of those complaints have actually been addressed at this point in time And so you know and actually they should be addressed, you know right right away But now they're not even being addressed at all as far as I can tell so One very specific action item that you can take forth from this presentation is The next time that there's a commission meeting which would be next wednesday You can sign up to speak and say look, this is how this is actually affecting us And letting the commissioners know straight up as a community member as a citizen This is what's happening to us right now We've got complaints that are in front of your your people and they're not doing anything And if there's a few people that say that what i've seen is the commissioners actually will kind of mention it and At least ask the staff to follow up. So it becomes something that's kind of at the top of the to you list I've seen that several times. I can't guarantee any outcomes, but at the very least it'll be a lot better than Doing nothing which is kind of what's happening right now. So I would encourage that as just kind of an immediate action item there And also just letting them know how miserable it is and how bad it is In order for them to keep in mind, you know, basically don't ever do this again This was something that's was kind of a legacy before 181 unfortunately But the more the commissioners know about the effects and the bad effects. I think the better particularly when it comes to your your very specific experiences I mean, ultimately from a legal perspective, there could be ways where You know, you file a lawsuit to tell them to follow the law that there's actually a couple lawsuits filed right now that have been consolidated That's telling the air pollution control vision to follow the law by the wild earth guardians and edf Um, so that's always a possibility. But as joe will probably confirm, you know, litigation is a very uncertain game And um, you never really quite know where the judge is going to come out and and uh, you can't really put all your eggs in that basket I don't think Okay, so i'll move on very quickly and then turn over to joe to the air pollution control division and a qcc um so the aqcc In my humble opinion, I think is deserving of Something similar to senate bill 181 They need some real systemic reform. I think um Right now there's still a part-time commission Which is what the co gcc used to be But the problem there's good things and bad things about being a part-time commission. The bad part is is that they're very staff driven Um, and right now the staff that's driving them has issues very big issues themselves And we've seen reporting just just uh, the last couple of days about that on color other news lines. So Um, you know, the staff itself has issues and and they're the ones that are driving the decisions at atcc So that's a problem and that's that's going to be, you know, I think has to be legislation-based So go back to your legislators and talk to them about that But one thing that I will say is that with one bill that was passed this year House bill 1266, which was about environmental justice It's it really wrote in um Environmental justice and helping disproportionately impacted communities into the statute Like there's actually a statutory duty now In Colorado statutes to quote decrease environmental burdens that are suffered in and disproportionately impacted communities Now disproportionately impacted communities are defined in the bill But they are roughly equal. I think, um Either 40 percent communities of color 40 percent Under the 200 percent of the federal poverty level, I think So that's income and there's also 40 housing challenged meaning They spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing So it could be any one of those three categories or all three as it turns out if you calculated There's about 1.6 million in color runs that live in a disproportionately impacted community So that's a lot what that means is that I think there's an angle there for community activism to focus on Where you can really focus on making sure that the rules are even stronger and disproportionately impacted communities And the cdph Slash air pollution control revisions slash air quality control commission Should have a very sympathetic year based on the bill that was just passed this year At least to put that into place and then from there Assuming that you can get some tougher regulations in place You might be able to move on to the rest of the state But I would just say focus may be first on disproportionately impacted communities Which are more widespread than you may assume just based on based on the state criteria So, um, I guess I'll leave it there I might have gone longer than I should have but that's what happens when you win paper scissors rock and I'll turn it over to Joe and then I guess we can go from there Thank you so much. That was great great All right, that's good. Just hello Lynette. Um, it's great to see everyone always happy to defer to uh to my buddy Mike foot Um, so he covered an awful lot of things I want to I want to cover some of the things that you can do right now And I see that we have some legislators and some county commissioners and and also a city council member on on the line right now And um, this is basically to you and to your constituents um The city of longmont Boulder county and the state of colorado have massive amounts of land It's land that's not being used it's land that you know that city council members are county officials or the state are looking to develop and We don't have the water resources to develop these things by handing it over to developers and just letting them build Housing and and and bringing in more people. We just don't have those resources now and so what I would suggest is that um in order to address the issue of air quality is that Maybe you as government officials should start looking at planning regenerative crops And carbon sequestering crops such as hemp hemp is a product that can be sold It is a uh, it is a commodity That could be sold on the market. In fact, I know farmers and ranchers are sorry farmers here in the state of colorado Who are making an awful lot of money by planting hemp? Why wouldn't you use your property to do that in order to generate some some income for uh, for your local government But also to help sequester carbon in the environment I don't know if you know this but hemp is actually a great I mean it just it pulls carbon out of the air And it puts it right back into the ground and it also takes pollutants too Out of the air and puts it back into the ground. So why wouldn't you do that? That's one thing that I would suggest The other thing that I would suggest is that the legislature should start looking at legislation that um That creates strict liability for oil and gas operators whose oil and gas activities Has caused harm to the public or has caused harm to an individual or to the property I ran that bill in 2014. So it's not as if it's a new thing It was called the earthquake bill, but it was more than just earthquakes It was about creating strict liability on the oil and gas industry when you create strict liability You ship the burden of proof to oil and gas to prove that their operations Didn't cause the harm Right now what we're seeing is we're seeing these lawsuits from boulder and from other municipalities local governments across the across the united states as well as individuals trying to sue the oil and gas industry um for causing harm environmental harm which then leads to you know, uh harm to infrastructure and to individuals and the property but The legislature has the power to create shifting burdens So why wouldn't you create a burden? um To the oil and gas industry where they have to prove that their activity isn't causing the harm The science is already out there when I ran my bill on the on on earthquakes as well as other harms the science was It was starting to become settled, but it wasn't completely settled Now it is right here. We are uh nearly eight years later and the science has settled on this That the oil and gas industry is causing climate change which is resulting in harm to to to people and to property and to local government's infrastructure So that's one of the things that I would suggest that legislators do And I think that it's incumbent upon you to have to do it I mean you were elected in this time in a climate crisis for a reason And that reason is is that you have to meet The burden of your time and the burden of your time is to ensure that people can start fighting for themselves And start fighting for their properties and local governments can start recouping The massive amounts of dollars that are being lost as a result of the climate crisis So shift that burden you have the power to do that as a legislator um Mike is right It's not easy to sue and it's not easy to sue because when you sue the oil and gas industry You typically have the burden of proof. We know this right We have multiple cases going on right now where we have the burden of proof We have motions to dismiss filed against us all the time or motions for summary judgment We're representing our long months on the on the fracking ban trying to revive that fracking ban And you know that case was dismissed by the district court on summary judgment Even though that there were genuine issues of a material fact in dispute and still the judge granted The co gcc and koga their motion for summary judgment and now we are up on Now we're up in front of the colorado court of appeals on this issue We have other cases where we're representing the ivy The ivy folks the act and folks here in thorton where we're trying to stop force pulling Saying that it's unconstitutional Based off of our own state constitution. I'm working on that case with mike foot now And it's not easy. I mean we have had some decisions come down that have been a little bit shocking But when you're working up against nearly a hundred years of court precedence in favor of the oil and gas industry It's going to take some time to move this ship around And that's where the legislature can actually be helpful if you can provide some relief Two litigants where they don't have to prove that oil and gas is causing the harm But that oil and gas has to prove that it's not causing the harm That is a huge step forward I'll tell you something if you don't do this now Someone's going to do it two years from now four years from now Five years from now. They're going to have to do it So step up be the champion that you say that you are and actually run this legislation And with that I'm going to um, I'm going to stop and and have anybody ask any questions I'll need I need to let you know that talking about air quality We're using our air fire to make some chicken wings and the air quality in my house. It's pretty is pretty smoky So you might hear the fire alarm go off Thank you joe that was great I'm so glad to have you here and to talk talk to us about that. It was good Good on good on you Yeah, let's have let's open it up to questions and answer michael and judith will Will look over the questions. I guess I have we're kind of uh long We're kind of a little bit over our time, but I just want to say there's a couple of events Coming up Friday there's a world climate um event And it's I can't remember the name of it, but I have it on the last slide here But uh, it we're going to get involved here in longmont sixth and main three to five three to six on friday I think it's called Well, I'll I'll it's it's up here. So you'll see it and I'll send it to you too. And then also on a city council tuesday 28th at 7 p.m. They're going to um They're going we're asking you to support the energy innovation act Let's see if I can tell you a little bit more about that Um, if you're interested you can rsvp moria This longmont ccl climate at gmail.com the longmont ccl at climate dot com or if you can attend You can email the council members to indicate that you support the city council endorsing the energy innovation act Um, and then I don't know if anybody else has any announcements. It might be one of the thing But go ahead with questions and answer Okay, uh, this is judiff. Can you hear me? Okay? Yeah, I'm repeating a question from the chat room And this is basically for marta if she's still on the line but uh, the question has to do with the fact that Our health researchers Medical researchers have pretty well concluded that there's probably no safe way To do fracking for oil and gas that that isn't dangerous One way or another especially toward health And that the legislature had already come up with Senate without the bill 1981 that allowed local control a little more power than had been the case earlier so lots of speakers spoke up to the to the boulder commissioners Asking them to try reinforcing what longmont started requesting a ban to be legal in boulder county to to activate 181 and to challenge the whole establishment Why was long why was boulder county? Reluctant to try that having done lots of litigation that did lots of delays But didn't result in a in a in a complete ban So that's the question What was the why was the county commission so Reluctant to take a risk Judas have just left Oh, okay. Well, I guess we can't anybody else wants to say anything about that You know, you're sure welcome to speak out if any there's any of the other Speakers want to comment on that We'll we will send that to her. She says Any further questions? Let us know Okay Well, we have several more so i'll give michael a turn to ask the next question and i'll come back I don't you know, judith. I'm not seeing what you're seeing somehow because I don't see any Other questions. So you got what I did actually I had a question of martha Who ironically or coincidentally has left but maybe somebody can answer this particularly mike or maybe joe It was she mentioned or in a slide Mentioned that boulder county has made efforts to To require further financial assurance financial controls these were words she used and i'm not Quite precisely clear about what she meant other than what I've always thought was missing And that is huge Requirements for Heirs and omissions or liability coverage And that has seemed to be neglected in this whole formula Of over the years and I can't figure that out. So Why why that's not pursued? aggressively I can't take a stab at that if you want So, you know, clearly I can't speak on behalf of the boulder county commission, but um You know, I do some work with local governments and on um on the oil and gas Front and although not with boulder county. So I can't talk about their deliberations at all but Um, so might answer your immediate question about financial assurances and and those things that there are actually The state itself I think you heard is going through a rulemaking to change theirs But the county in the meantime put in More stringent financial assurance requirements in the county code Which does include insurance requirements and so the county has done that Looking at the county's regulations as a whole It clearly as you all know it does not ban oil and gas drilling Take on it is it's going to make it pretty difficult The drill in boulder county They have to go through more hoops than anywhere else with maybe the exception of broomfield And even if they go through those hoops, there's still plenty of discretion within the county commissioners hands To say no And so it's not an outright ban, but I also think that It uses 181 um In a way to make it so, you know It would set it up so that that they could say no and Denied drilling permits now if we were talking about other counties like even leaving well county out of it But if you're talking about other counties It the regulations are more about in a check a box and as long as you check all the boxes they say yes And I don't read boulder county's regulations like that fortunately enough for us to live here But it isn't an outright ban. I of course agree with you on that and no one's disputing that so I'm not sure if that's answering the questions that were up there What I had to offer for it Thank you I'd like to say too that there is discussion and concern about abandoned wells And that the bonding requirements for abandoned wells is um is a potential reliability for the state And so there are discussions about that Tracy the um Retrospectively I presume that there weren't stiff requirements As far as the bonding on when those wells were made that would extend to the point of Closing those wells and abandoning them So would that only if there were changes made it would presumably only apply to future wells, correct? current and future wells I had to ask mike that question. Yeah, it can actually be retroactive wells so With bonding and and part of that is because oil and gas is By the courts considered to be a highly regulated industry and that's just part of the game They know that new regulations can come about and they They would have to comply and so the co gcc is going through that process now and in the first draft of the rules They laid out that the requirements that they want to put on the table Would be retroactive and they cited authority for it and and frankly, I don't think the oil and gas industry is disputing it They're spending most of their time crying about how it's going to cost them so much to comply So I think they're kind of assuming that it's going to be retroactive as well You know, I got I I'd like to chime in a little bit too Especially with a representative Burnett being online You know, we we've been filing a quora request after quora request against the oil and gas commission To find out where these dollars are coming from You know, texas t when they were chased out of colorado They had like $78,000 in bonds for to cover 10 wells, which isn't nearly enough to to cover those wells Um when Petro shares went out of business They had like $368,000 in bonds to cover like a huge amount of wells Which would end up being like $7,600 per well, which we know is not enough So we started asking the question. Where's the rest of the money coming from in order to Adjust these these abandoned and orphan wells. Obviously, it's going to have to be state money There's not enough that's being brought in through through fees Through the oil and gas industry Um to cover all these orphan and abandoned wells The other thing that we've been asking is well, how many are there? There are 60,000 wells in the state of colorado How many are orphan and abandoned right now from the number that we're getting it looks like it's anywhere between 17,000 and 20,000 But here's the thing oil and gas in uh commission can't tell us precisely because they haven't been tracking it Right, there's a whole lot of incompetence happening over at the co g cc that we're finding out through our Through our core requests So then that leaves the question With so many orphan and abandoned wells out there and not enough bond to cover it Then that's going to have to be on the state of colorado, but you can't do that If you are using taxpayers dollars to pay to plug Orphan and abandoned wells, you're going to run into a table problem Because table prohibits multi-year obligations Meaning that you can't use taxpayers dollars year after year after year To pay for someone else's obligations that those cases are being litigated right now And that's what gives us the gravitas to tell the oil and gas industry that in order or tells the the uh the commission That rulemaking needs to be a full cost bonding Experiment and needs to happen full cost bonding here in the state of colorado You as as as legislators you need to show up to these hearings to hear what's actually happening You have that right to do that. That's the checks and balances of government You get to check the executive to making sure that that they're implementing the statute correctly And I would I would highly suggest that you show up to to rulemaking as it starts off in november all the way through uh through february All right, thank you Somebody has their hand up uh councilwoman. Joan peck wants to say something. So uh, go ahead and unmute Joan Go ahead And some of did you hear anything I said? No, go ahead and start now. Okay. I was on a meeting a couple of uh weeks ago with kin buck and some some elected officials from uh From welt county as well as from adams county and it was this exact subject about abandoned wells So adams county, I guess just has hundreds of them. Uh, and they are Really overwhelmed with how they are going to close these wells Some of them are so old that the operating companies don't exist anymore as joe selzar has uh mentioned So I was wondering on a legislative level. Is there any way to decrease to the oil and gas organizations companies The amount of tax incentives that we give them So that we get more tax from from this industry in order to be able to close some of these wells Or Get more royalties From them. I I don't know the ins and outs is how this would work or even if it would specifically to earmark those dollars to close wells because um I think they should have to pay for it But how can we make them pay for it? in a way that won't hurt or involve tabor or uh Maybe make it a grant program through the state that each county or city would have to Apply for a grant through these funds to close their wells Just a thought i'm trying to think outside the box So that we can uh actually hurt the oil and gas industry and help us so I just have to say that um These are the discussions that my colleagues in our having And uh, it's something that we're all aware of that. Um, and I'd have to say, uh, you know, we Why do we have these? Why do we have these tax exemptions? Why do we have these? These, um, you know Why do we have these tax exemptions for an industry that's so mature when what we're really trying to do Is uh transition to a clean? uh energy of the future so Uh, it just doesn't make sense to me and I know that it is being discussed at the state legislature That's as much as I can say right now, but thanks for I do appreciate your um your comment Yay Thank you Any other any other comments or questions right now? I got a question uh personally from tim Which is an interesting question I'm sorry. Marta isn't here to answer this but He says because air quality exacerbates covid And oil and gas is a large part of causing poor air quality Is there a chance that air quality monitoring can be supported by rescue plan funds? Interesting question. I don't know if anybody but That's a county Joe boiden has to answer that president the president well Well, I think the county could appeal for that, you know, so Yeah Is Karen McCormick still here? No. No, I believe Okay, I had a question for her maybe we're Past our deadline here Yeah, I think I tell you what we're going to put together a um We're going to put together a little handout for you guys and uh, we'll send it out The worldwide day of action is Hashtag fridays for future And the one and uh, we're participating this friday 924 from 3d6 at 6th and main in longmont and we will Definitely get you uh the copy of this video and we will get you a copy of our other two videos If you're not like this video is going to be shown on the longmont public media on september 29 and um, and I just really thank all of our Uh presenters we really got a lot of good information. I I've got several pages of notes here and um, I think we really found out found out a lot. It was very informative and We've got to stay active. We can't quit. We've got to we've got to keep Going and uh, we've got to keep keep active and we've got to get more people to get to To uh be active with us. So thank you so much. Stay tuned Lynette, can we announce national drive electric week before? Oh, yeah, go ahead mitzvim On a positive note, um, we are hosting sustainable resilient longmont An ev fair electric vehicle fair on sunday october 3rd from 11 a.m. To 3 p.m We have it at the boulder fairgrounds. It's part of national drive electric week And we have surpassed what we thought we were going to do. We've had so much support so many Auto dealers will have food trucks entertainment. So it's Free to the public come out and see where we're going with evs And it's october 3rd. Thank you We have ev cars. We have solar solar panels and power walls and bicycles and What else trucks all kinds of electric guest speakers Yeah It's going to be great Any other announcements that we want to make we will we'll send all this out to you though And thank you again to all of our speakers It's it's really been great to hear from all of you and thank you for all that you do You guys are all wonderful. We're so happy. We're so lucky to have you all no wonder we're I wait ahead of the game in in the whole nation. So it's because of you guys So thank you Any other comments? All right, you guys take care and our next event probably is going to be on water. So taste stay tuned. We'll be back