The saga continues, but progress is being made, even if it’s not as direct a path as we’d like. In the last week, I’ve been on the phone with many of the key players, and I held a second meeting at the Capitol with some of these folks.

Here’s what I’ve learned. The Nielsen Co., based in New York, is the private business that surveys the television viewing habits of households. Based on its surveys, it provides broadcasters with the results that shape advertising decisions. The Federal Communications Commission adopted Nielsen’s market areas when regulating who could send their broadcast signals to what areas, even though this created “orphan” or “island” rural counties like La Plata and Montezuma, located along state boundaries, that can be swept into another state’s market area.

This is dense stuff, but it leads to how we might eventually be able to get more people access to Denver television.

I talked at length with two Nielsen executives who assured me they are neutral players in all of this. They report only what the actual viewing habits are, not what viewers would pick. They sent me data from the last five years showing the percentage of viewers in our area for Albuquerque versus Denver television. They acknowledged that Albuquerque would be a higher percentage until more of us could and do watch Denver television.

They told me about a Nebraska county, though, that just “flipped” market areas, leaving a South Dakota broadcast area for Denver’s. When I asked how the county did that because it wouldn’t be “legal” for them to watch Denver channels, the Nielsen executives said they didn’t know, repeating that their only function is to tell broadcasters who is watching what.

On a quarterly basis, Nielsen randomly contacts a certain small number of households in La Plata and Montezuma counties. Based on that input of viewing habits, we continue in Albuquerque’s market and are unable to move into Denver’s. However, if those contacted by Nielsen were watching Denver stations, our two counties could flip as did Morrill County, Neb.

At the second meeting at the Capitol, we had great participation and out-of-the-box thinking going on with Marilyn Hogan of the Colorado Broadcasters Association, one of her board members and Shawn Beqaj of Bresnan Communications, the local cable company that provides Denver channels.

Beqaj, Bresnan’s vice president of public affairs, flew in from New York for the meeting. He welcomes your input. His phone number is (914) 641-3324. Hogan has received a lot of input, and I promised not to list her number again, provided the broadcasters association keeps helping us.

DISH, one of the satellite companies in our area, also has been very responsive to my calls and is brainstorming ideas about how more people in our area can view Colorado stations. Satellite television has more flexible rules than cable but greater technological challenges.

Time and technological advances may help, but in the meantime, the parties mentioned above are committed to continuing to work with me on your behalf. They understand our frustration with what has been a longstanding problem.

The bottom line is we need to prove to Nielsen through the households surveyed that we have more Denver viewers. There are five Denver channels that can be watched via the Internet; Nielsen cares only about what you watch, not how you do that.

We hold more power in this situation than we knew, but it has been buried too deep in the onion to know what steps to take. It’s up to you now about how to use the knowledge.

The resolution left the House with unanimous support and headed to the Senate. A resolution is typically viewed as a statement of sorts and isn’t like a bill requiring additional state action once passed.  Therefore, resolutions don’t usually involve a lot of discussion or debate and rarely, if ever, are amended in the second chamber. My goal in passing the resolution in this case was to assist the congressional efforts to get the option of Denver television programming into all households in our area.

When the resolution went to the Senate, Senator Whitehead amended it to send a copy of the resolution to the Colorado Broadcasters Association (CBA) and that amendment didn’t bring out about any opposition.  A second change was made that instructed the CBA to support the federal pieces of legislation on this issue and to actively lobby for them.  This amendment was unacceptable to the CBA because they felt it was inappropriate for the state government to tell a non-profit what their agenda must be.

They have a legitimate and important point, so I rejected that senate amendment and asked that a conference committee be formed.  All but one of the House members voted with me to support rejecting that amendment and the one who didn’t said he voted no because he couldn’t believe that a resolution would need to go to a conference committee.

I share that legislator’s frustrated view of the unusual path the resolution is taking, but I’m serious about seeking answers and possible results, so I’m willing to put the extra time and effort into this.  I suggested to the CBA that we have a meeting to discuss what their concerns and what help they could provide; again, I invited the two bill co-sponsors to join us, which they did.

I’m thrilled that at last to be dealing directly with the CBA to discuss the situation.  While our meeting began with a testy atmosphere, we worked our way to a mutually agreed upon plan to get more information in seeing our way to possible change affecting the two counties in my district. My hope was that each customer would be able to make the choice of which programming to receive, that is, either from Albuquerque or Denver.

In addition to the president of CBA, one of the board members and their attorney came to the meeting and provided additional information about the challenges before us.  Without federal change for the entire country, it isn’t possible to access both Denver and Albuquerque programming at the same time. It also appears that what we might be able to change would be the ability to get Denver news to everyone, like the cable companies provide, but not necessarily full programming from Denver.

The CBA has provided me with names and numbers for the company executives in charge of programming for the satellite companies in our area and they established a direct connection for me with Nielsen’s, the private company that does the research which is the basis for the boundaries of the designated marketing areas for television broadcasting.

I’m in conversation with each of those entities as they look further into our situation and get me answers.  I’m organizing another meeting at the Denver Capitol that will include all of the known players to date, including the cable companies, and I will report back to you as we peel back what seems to a very complex onion, with one layer always below the one just peeled off!

One of these bills would allow a check off contribution to be made to support 2-1-1 call services, which is a private, non-profit effort managed by the United Ways of Colorado.  For those who have just completed their annual state tax return, you may have noticed that there are 14 different non-profits that you can contribute to by checking a box on your tax return.

If we’re successful in getting this bill passed, it will help beef up the information network statewide, but especially in the southwest corner of the state.  We would then be able to receive the same phone assistance services for people in distress in non-emergency situations.  This is a great way to provide information to those in need and, by using the 211 phone number, that help is made easily accessible in a cost effective and user friendly way.

There is the limit of only 14 organizations able to be listed on the tax form, so as you might imagine, many non-profits want to be listed on the tax return to receive possible donations.  According to current law, each organization has a certain threshold of contributions that must be received annually in order to stay on the form.  If an organization fails to meet the threshold, they drop off the following year.  There’s often competition whenever a new listing becomes available.

The other bill of mine that’s now on to the Senate asks that Colorado seeks a waiver from the federal government so that there’s more time allowed for Medicaid patients to be eligible for hospice services.  Expanding the period of eligibility for hospice care lets terminally ill patients voluntarily access that care sooner and will enable a hospice team to care a very ill patient earlier than is presently allowed under the federal law.

Currently, federal law says that a terminal illness is one where the physician diagnoses a patient with a condition that is likely to result in death within 6 months.  We’re asking that physicians be given a little more latitude that diagnosis by allowing the physician’s prediction to be made for patients with a time period of 9 months instead of 6.

Making a change of a few months may not seem like a big deal to most people, but given that a patient can’t receive hospice services until that referral is made can mean a lot to a patient and the patient’s family.

The average length of stay for a Colorado hospice patient is only 20 days, yet so many patients and families who have received care know just how significant it is during such difficult times and often say they would have received that care long than a few weeks.

Finally, a great highlight of my week came in sitting in on the Joint House and Senate Education Committee to watch a team of three members of the Colorado Youth Advisory Council make a formal presentation about the council’s work to the committee.  The students did a terrific job discussing bills from this session that COYAC had reviewed and they were prepared to give input on those bills to the legislators.

The legislators were busily competing with each other to ask questions of the COYAC  team and were clearly interested in hearing the youth voice of Colorado, particularly in the area of education reform. It was incredibly gratifying to see that COYAC has come fully into its own. I thank all of the students from our area who helped write that bill with me to make COYAC become a reality!

I voted no on some of the companion budget bills that had to do with the expansion of state programs because of the fiscal impacts of such expansions, but I voted for the budget bill itself since it’s necessary for essential state services like roads, driver’s license services and running our schools, courts and prison systems.

I sponsored an amendment to the budget bill to remove a potentially damaging reference to Fort Lewis College’s ability to manage its own affairs.  I’m pleased that the amendment passed with significant bipartisan support and help from several legislators who are proud Fort Lewis alumni.

It’s been unfortunate to see the number of times Denver based decisions reflect a lack of knowledge and respect for Fort Lewis’ history and wonderfully diverse student body and faculty.  Yet, we’re getting the legislators familiar with our college by talking about it and increasing their awareness of its unique position in Colorado’s college system as well as in the national college system.

I’d also like to recognize Fort Lewis College’s incredibly successful athletes in so many sports, including most recently the women’s basketball team as well as the men’s soccer and cycling teams.  I want you to know that you’re also wonderful and well known topics of discussion when I share stories about Fort Lewis College with my fellow legislators.

In another déjà vu moment this week, I was indirectly made aware of a press release from the Colorado Broadcasters Association that roughly says we in Southwest Colorado don’t have a problem with getting Denver television broadcasts. Or, if we do have a problem, it’s not their fault or the fault of the FCC.

Gosh, I’m getting tired of hearing whose fault this isn’t and, if it was true that all of us could get Denver stations as we’d like, I wouldn’t care anymore about whose fault it was or why it had been a problem.  But, unfortunately, that’s not the case.

I’d suggest that anyone who’s interested in this issue should provide the Colorado Broadcasters Association with the same disturbing input that I’ve received for my nearly four years as a legislator.  The phone number for the CBA is (970) 547-1388.  If stirring the pot results in action and another piece of legislation, whether at the state or federal level, is never needed again, count me as a happy camper.

With many of the session’s traditional milestones nearly completed, there’s talk that we may end the session early this year and that sounds good to me.  I have a few bills still in the works over in the Senate and a couple of my bills that were passed out of their first committee back in January have yet to be heard in the House Appropriations Committee. However, they have been scheduled for this next week, so I should have more to report on these bills soon.

One of these is the bill idea brought to me by the United Way of Southwest Colorado and the Mile High United Way of Denver that would create a voluntary state income tax donation to support statewide 2-1-1 services.  The second bill is a hospice and palliative care interim committee bill that requests the state to seek a federal waiver to allow Colorado to have more discretion regarding eligibility of Medicaid patients to receive hospice services.

The Colorado Republican state legislators asked Attorney General Suthers to join the lawsuit with a dozen other attorneys general from across the country to address the parts of the federal bill that force states to develop and pay for Medicaid programs that traditionally have been determined by each state.

The main concern as expressed in the lawsuit is the cost to the states of complying with the bill.  This concern is all the greater because, unlike the federal government, the states’ have constitutional requirements to balance their budgets.

Compliance with the federal bill will mean greater growth in each state’s Medicaid program without new funding to pay for that growth.  This in turn means that more budget cuts need to be made in other state agencies and programs to make up the difference or the states need to raise taxes to pay for the additional costs.

The lawsuit is principally focused on the 10^th amendment of the U.S. Constitution and questions the constitutionality of a bill that removes from the states the authority to design their own public health insurance programs.  Some have called Suthers’ decision to join the suit partisan politics.  Others applaud him for calling into question the federal government’s reach into traditionally state matters.

As a state legislator serving at a time when we face the unpleasant task of cutting the budget almost daily and in so many ways, I see the need to resolve this question sooner rather than later.

Citizens are passionate on both sides of the debate and the political process is incapable of resolving that discord.  It’s time to call upon the third branch of government to apply reason and legal precedent to the conversation.

Personally, I’m very concerned that, on many policy fronts, we are losing the battle for a decentralized government as envisioned by those who founded our country.

I’m pleased to report that the House Joint Resolution that I sponsored this year regarding getting access to Denver television for all of Southwest Colorado passed the House with full support from all of the legislators.  The resolution is waiting to be heard in the Senate and once it passes there, it’ll be delivered to Colorado’s congressional delegation to hopefully help move along their efforts to prod the FCC into action on this.

It’s important to note that some residents in our region already get access to Denver television, but many do not.  My bill asks the FCC to allow the customer to choose which stations he or she wants to get and doesn’t ask to eliminate the Albuquerque connections.

The bill’s similar to the one I carried two years ago, but, unfortunately, our congressional delegation was unable to make things move any further in Washington, D.C. with the Federal Communications Commission.    I, like many of you, look forward to the day when I can have full access to programs from my own state, rather than from New Mexico.

Here’s hoping that the second time is the charm.

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Springtime in the Rockies means sudden storms that can start in a furious rain that turns into snow, followed by sunshine.  Midweek at the Capitol in Denver, we had the full range of Rocky Mountain spring weather and, for the first time in the four years that I’ve been there, we had a snow day along with Denver school children.

Closing the legislature for a heavy wet snowstorm seemed a bit wimpy to me, but Denver drivers are pretty scary in snowy conditions, so it probably was a safer way to go that day.  I enjoyed the peace and near solitude of the Capitol and got a lot of desk work done.

I’m referring to House Bill 1365 that I agreed to carry in the House as part of a bipartisan team with Rep. Judy Solano, (D-Brighton).  The federal Clear Air Act has been in place for decades and the stricter regulations requiring change are the result of both Republican and Democratic administrations.  First, though, I had a lot of questions as to whether it’s a bill I was willing to vote for.

HB 1365 allows Xcel Energy, the largest utility on the Front Range, to propose a plan to convert 950 megawatts of power from coal to natural gas.  The plan’s reduction in emissions would significantly help the Front Range’s smog and health hazards from air pollution.  For as many times as I’ve flown back and forth to Denver, the brown cloud hanging above it is a very familiar sight.

I didn’t support, and still don’t, the recently passed House Bill 1001, the newest renewable energy mandate for Colorado.  My primary concern is legislatively adding another renewable energy mandate in these economic times.  To be clear, I’ve supported many renewable energy bills, including a 2007 renewable energy standard bill, and there are solar panels on my home’s rooftop.

However, we should’ve allowed more time to see what effects recently passed legislation have on providing consumers with reliable and affordable electricity.  Another objection I had to HB 1001 was the union provisions which I believe will hurt our local solar installers.

When I was approached about HB 1365, I needed to be convinced that we weren’t going down the same road with this bill.  After an intensive week or so of spending many hours talking with the coalition who had put the compromise together, I was comfortable that this bill is not another mandate, but, if passed, will help Colorado meet air quality goals that must be attained in the very near term.

The federal EPA issued notice to metropolitan Denver in January, 2009, that it was out of compliance for haze requirements.  If Colorado doesn’t come up with an acceptable plan in 2010 to reduce air pollutants, the EPA will write its own plan that will be imposed on us in early 2011.  Most people in Southwestern Colorado know that we’ve been in a similar situation of being in non-attainment based on air quality monitor readings from air pollutants carried by wind up to our region from northern New Mexico.

For the past several years, I’ve been in close communication with the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment about what it would mean to our area if we are determined to be out of compliance with the same federal requirements.  This isn’t the global warming debate. This is ground level ozone and regional haze and they have significant environmental, public health and economic consequences.

Through HB 1365, Xcel is asking for legislative authority to set forth a plan to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission converting some of its coal power to natural gas.  The natural gas industry, environmentalists and state regulators want to achieve cleaner air on a quick timeframe and seek a Colorado based solution, rather than one made in Washington, D.C.

Natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel and has been on the defensive in Colorado for the past several years as new state regulations have been imposed on its production.  Under this bill, coal will remain an important Colorado resource and also has a strong market in other parts of the country who buy it to meet their air quality standards.

This bill has its challenges, but it’s worth serious consideration.  Fragile coalitions are always vulnerable to opponents’ efforts to wedge them apart. Time will tell how this one weathers the political storms.

This week, the hottest topic for legislators and constituents had to do with the tax bill affecting internet retailers doing business in Colorado.  This has been referred to as the Amazon.com bill.  Amazon terminated its contracts with people in Colorado who have websites that led visitors from their websites to Amazon’s website.  The hosts of the referring websites are called affiliates and got paid for making those connections to Amazon and this  connection made the new law applicable to retailers like Amazon.

House Bill 1193 was one of the tax bills we heard in House Finance Committee.  It was rammed through the legislative process and signed quickly by the governor when we arrived for the new session.  I knew nothing about the affiliate businesses that were out there, but I learned a lot through their testimony to the committee about what they do, how they get paid and why they were worried this bill would cost them their jobs.

I consciously shop at locally owned stores as much as possible, whether it’s for my books, my cup of tea, my clothing or sports gear. I also shop online.  However, it hadn’t ever occurred to me to file a Colorado use tax return for past online purchases.  It’s true that state tax is owed for online purchases and there ought to be a way for consumers, and the state, to handle that quickly and efficiently.  But, this bill certainly doesn’t provide anything resembling quick, efficient or cost effective.

The administrative burden imposed by this bill on out of state online retailers with affiliates is huge.  They, including Amazon, told us that before the votes and bill amendments didn’t fix that.

The amount of sales tax that we were told would be collected by this bill seemed unbelievably high to me.  The number of state employees who would be needed to deal with the new paperwork required and to force compliance with the taxpayers seemed vastly underestimated.  The invasion of privacy issues tied to the bill are huge; if you aren’t a fan of the Patriot Act, you really won’t like the new reporting requirements about your online purchases.

I didn’t like the bill at all and didn’t think my constituents would either, if they knew all of the problems with it.  I voted against the bill in committee and on the floor.

Since some have asked, my views are this: Should there be sales tax collected from online sales? Sure.  Should it be done state by state with different approaches? No, as this puts enforcing states like Colorado at a competitive disadvantage.  Should the consumer have an efficient way to comply with the law and pay their sales taxes when they buy the item? Absolutely, but this bill doesn’t provide for that.

Moving on, I’d like to share with you something printed on the back of a note card given to me by someone whom I’ve always considered to be a deep and challenging thinker.

His note card reads, “A Thought From Governor Richard Lamm, ‘In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security.  They wanted a comfortable life and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom.  When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.’ – Edith Hamilton”

I’ve reread this many times and it strikes me as an especially interesting and timely quote for all of us to consider.

The bill was an idea brought to me by a knowledgeable Durango constituent, Charlie Speno, who after many years of working in the field of care of the elderly and disabled, was made keenly aware of the workforce challenges for nurse aide paraprofessionals.

CNAs are those who provide the direct care to the elderly and disabled and are critically needed in the daily lives of these folks and their families.  The very high rate of turnover in CNAs affects the state and its citizens in a number of ways.  The state spends a lot of its budget in the area of Medicaid services and the costs of training new nurse aides at such a rapid rate contributes to the state’s budget challenges.

HB 1142 was written to revive an expired pilot program and created a statewide direct provider career path that would be offered in educational institutions, such as community colleges.  While the bill didn’t require an employer to pay additional wages for further training, it was anticipated that the new skills acquired would make the CNA more valuable and more interested in staying in his or her job.

Once introduced, HB 1142 went through a fiscal analysis to determine what it would cost the state to implement the bill, if passed.  In this case, the affected state agencies each saw new duties that they’d have to take on if the bill passed, so they reported projected costs to the fiscal analyst.  In the end, the bill was estimated to cost over $100,000 a year and the addition of 3 new state employees to oversee the program.

I worked with the state agencies to see if there was a way to rewrite the bill to eliminate the costs, but I was unsuccessful in reaching an agreement with them.  Despite valuing the same goal that we had, as can often happen in policymaking, it was the “how to get there” that became the wall too high to climb.

In the current economic climate, I couldn’t proceed with those costs attached to the bill.  I pulled the bill by making a motion in the first committee hearing to postpone the bill indefinitely.  The health and human services committee members shared my disappointment that the bill couldn’t go forward this year, but seemed appreciative that I recognized that fact on my own, rather than asking them to pass it as drafted.

My plan is not to give up on the idea or the goal, but, instead to bring together the various stakeholders, including, but not limited to, the state agencies who opposed the bill or attached fiscal impacts to it to work with me to come up with a better, less costly proposal.  This’ll be a project I work on with the stakeholders and supporters of the concept once this session has adjourned.

Helping to provide high quality and affordable care of the elderly and disabled is a responsibility that, like other states, Colorado has assumed over the years.  We have long waiting lists for people who are eligible for services, but Colorado doesn’t have the money to provide those services.

If  those who provide direct care services see their jobs as more financially rewarding and personally satisfying, they’ll likely reverse the current trend and continue to stay in and advance in their jobs.  Given the large number of baby boomers headed into their golden years and our state’s economy in a seriously weakened condition, the sooner we address these challenges, the better.

My father was a dairy farmer when I was born.  He loved cows, whole milk and butter.  He claimed to even love the smell of cow manure.  Dad lived by the “cowboy ethics”, even after his farming days were done.    One of these recognized principles is, “Do what has to be done.”  Another is, “Always finish what you start.” Great advice, but following these principles this week was a real challenge for reasons I’ll explain below.

The Joint Budget Committee, a six member legislative committee, typically presents to the full legislature a package of bills to true up the budget that we passed the year before, but had only economic predictions to go by when we adjourned in May.

These bills are called the supplementals because, in good economic years, there’s often new funding requests submitted for our consideration.  This year, though, with less revenue than had been forecasted, we were considering negative supplementals, or in plain English, we had to make more cuts rather than approving new requests.

The Joint Budget Committee is a bipartisan group, but when the governor is from the same party as the legislative majority, the supplemental process is more of a formality than a true debate.  The minority party has only two ways to object to the proposals running on greased skids and that’s to vote no or to try to amend the bills.

This week, we were faced with cutting state agency expenses and some of us tried to nudge our fellow members to do what has to be done.  That is, we asked them to consider reducing the number of state employees, hopefully through retirements or resignations, by an additional 1.6% from the minimal or no reductions proposed in the bills.

We asked this by proposing amendments to the bills.  We expressed no malice toward any single agency of state government, but suggested all agencies would reduce personnel by the same small percentage, as implemented by the agency heads.  We felt this needed to be done, given the shortfall and the reality of the world outside of state government.

After hours of debate, only one of the amendments passed, the one that cut the Department of Agriculture.  Amendments for all of the other departments failed.  This wasn’t an accident, but political payback for not going along with the proposed package.  At the end of a long day, the only department to take a reduction would be the one most rural legislators feel a particular kinship to, that is, the Department of Agriculture.

At the last minute, the Agriculture committee chairman tried to reverse this result because only the agency under his committee would be reduced.  However, when the vote came to reverse that proposed additional cut, those who had supported it not knowing it would be the only accepted, were on the horns of a dilemma.

Do we say nice try, retreat and vote for the reversal of the earlier vote or do we stand on the principle that you do what has to be done?  The second ethic, finish what you start, came to mind. My father would expect as much.  Most of us stood our ground and voted against the reversal.  Regardless, the final vote came out to repeal the earlier action.

The Department of Agriculture won’t have that 1.6% additional reduction nor should it be the lone agency asked to do so.  Yet, I’m particularly proud of the House members whose livelihoods are in agriculture who stood firm, ready to take the budgetary hits we know are still before us.  That’s leadership that my dad, and theirs, would be proud of.

Probably the most significant bill I voted on, in terms of long term and fiscal impacts, was the proposal dealing with the state pension plan.  Senate Bill 1 proposes a way to close the gap between the future assets and liabilities of the pension fund known as PERA.  SB 1 had already been through the Senate and arrived in the House Finance Committee this past week.  We’d already been briefed by the PERA management on the proposal since returning for the 2010 session, so I’d heard much of the details before the bill got to us.

Everyone acknowledges that the pension fund will go broke, if left unattended.  This obviously has drastic consequences to the retirement benefits for current and future state retirees.  Southwest Colorado has a lot of retirees generally and a number of them are PERA members, so I knew it was important to attend the two PERA membership meetings in Durango this fall.  There, PERA management came to solicit input from PERA members about which direction to head in to deal with the shortfall facing the fund.

At the late August meeting, people agreed that action needed to be taken, but none knew the full range of options or how serious the problem might be.  By the time of the October meeting, the PERA board had assessed the landscape and was proposing a solution that none would like, but they felt would fairly meet the goal of having sufficient assets in a 30 year window of time to meet future obligations.

Clearly, SB 1 isn’t perfect and does have something for everyone to dislike.  But, it’s a solid proposal that meets the goal and doesn’t place the burden of increased payments into the fund solely on the backs of current and future state employees. That’s important if we are to be able to continue to keep and attract high caliber teachers and state employees.  I voted for the proposal in the Finance Committee as well as on the House floor. We’ve got to get PERA on solid footing and, as the daughter of a long time public school teacher, I know how important those retirement benefits were to my parents once my dad retired.

Another bill that created a lot of interest in the district is the rafting bill, House Bill 1188.  This bill proposes to strike a new balance between the commercial rafting industry and private landowners along the river banks.  The impetus for the bill is a battle that has erupted on the Taylor River, near Gunnison, where a landowner has shut down local rafting companies by putting a low bridge in the way of safe passage.

River running is a favorite activity for my family and me.  My kids grew up with lots of time spent camping along various rivers, knowing that each day of a river trip means adventure, hard work, and a chance to appreciate all that a river and its ecosystem has to offer.  We’ve also always been aware of and respected the rights of private property owners as we head downriver.

After hearing from constituents and following the legislators’ debate about the bill, looking at court cases and the history of Colorado river usage, and carefully considering the wording, I can’t support it, in its current form.

In particular, I don’t agree with separating the rights of the boaters into two categories, commercial and non-commercial. I also feel the expansion of the right to use the river to compel landowners to accommodate those who want to portage on riverfront property was not defined sufficiently to give adequate protection to landowners.  Well intentioned, but the bill needs some amendments.