Colorado
Colorado House passes bill banning so-called assault weapons
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DENVER — Democrats in the Colorado House of Representatives passed a bill on Sunday that would ban so-called assault weapons.
House Bill 1292 passed largely along party lines on a 35-27 vote. It now heads to the state Senate.
HB24-1292, which is sponsored by State Reps. Elisabeth Epps and Tim Hernandez, would define “assault weapon” and ban the manufacture, import, sale, or purchase of such weapons in Colorado.
The bill would also ban the possession of rapid-fire trigger activators, which are devices that can be attached to a gun to increase the speed at which it fires.
Hernandez said Friday his background as a teacher and as the first Colorado state lawmaker from Gen Z (the generation born between 1997 and 2012) provides him with a perspective on guns that differs from most of his colleagues.
“We have been living with mass shootings for my entire life. We have been doing active shooter drills for my entire life. We have been waiting to die in schools because adults would not be bold enough on guns,” said Hernandez. “Then I finally became a teacher, and I sat with my students who were still afraid to die in schools because adults would still not be bold enough on guns.”
Republican lawmakers like State Rep. Matt Soper told Denver7 on Friday the bill violates the Second Amendment rights of Coloradans.
“I can tell you from rural Colorado, the one thing that people hold most dear would be their property and firearms are right there with it,” Soper said. “Firearms are very symbolic of our way of life, of who we are.”
State Rep. Richard Holtorf, a Republican who’s also running for Congress in the Fourth Congressional District, said he doesn’t believe many sheriffs in Colorado will enforce the legislation, should it become law.
“You need to understand that in the 64 counties, I would opine that about 47 of them will never, ever because of those to the Constitution enforce this statute,” said Holtorf.
The County Sheriffs of Colorado opposes the bill.
Its future in the Senate, where more moderate Democrats serve, is unclear.
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Colorado
Trump funding freeze includes payments to keep the Colorado River flowing
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An aerial view shows the long-depleted Colorado River (L) as it flows between California (R) and Arizona, and an irrigation ditch (R) carrying river water toward Quechan tribal land on May 26, 2023 near Winterhaven, Calif.
Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
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Mario Tama/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
The first executive order President Trump signed in his second term, “Unleashing American Energy,” wouldn’t seem to have a direct impact on how much water is in the Colorado River, at least in the short term.
The order, signed the first day Trump took office, aims to “unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources,” by ending “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations.”
But the order also says, “All agencies shall immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”
While some of those funds were earmarked to prop up renewable energy, at least $4 billion was set aside to protect the flow of the Colorado River, which supplies about 40 million people with drinking water, is the foundation for a massive agricultural economy across the Southwest, and generates significant hydroelectric power.
The Colorado River is shrinking
The river is shrinking due to climate change, which means the nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, created by dams on the Colorado River, have reached record low levels in recent years amid a megadrought spanning more than two decades. If water levels fall much lower, they could lose the ability to generate hydropower within the massive dams that hold them back, or even lose the ability to pass water downstream.
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Docks and buoys, once floating atop dozens of feet of water, sit stranded on the shores of Lake Powell on April 9, 2023. President Trump paused funding that was designed to help conserve water and boost the nation’s largest reservoirs.
Alex Hager/KUNC
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Alex Hager/KUNC
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act allowed President Biden to designate $4 billion for Colorado River programs, including big sums for programs that pay farmers, cities and Native American tribes to conserve Colorado River water and, instead, leave it in those reservoirs. The payments are compensation for money they can’t make by using their water to grow crops or for other uses.
A lot of the IRA money has already been delivered, but Bart Fisher, who sits on the board of the Palo Verde Irrigation District in California, is worried about what will happen if it goes away.
“If there’s no funding,” he said, “there will be no conservation.”
Farmers in Palo Verde use Colorado River water to grow cattle feed and vegetables in the desert along the Arizona border. Fisher said they want to be active participants in protecting the river, but they stand to lose money if they use less water and grow fewer crops.
“You won’t see any ag producer in any district willing to sacrifice revenue from their normal ag production for nothing,” he said.
The river’s uncertain future
In the current funding cycle, landowners in Fisher’s irrigation district alone are getting about $40 million in exchange for cutting back on their water use. No one knows how much funding, if any, will be delivered in the next cycle, which starts in August. Fisher said farmers are already thinking about their budgets for the next growing season.
“At the moment, it’s unnerving to think that maybe come August the first, all of our plans will need to suddenly change,” he said.
Some water experts say they are surprised to see these water conservation programs frozen by Trump’s executive order, since they do not appear to be in line with the president’s stated priorities of eliminating diversity programs and boosting domestic energy production.
“These are not woke environmental programs,” said Anne Castle, who held federal water policy roles during the Biden and Obama administrations. “These are essential to continued ability to divert water.”
Water users whose grants have been paused said they are asking the federal government for more information and getting little in the way of answers. The federal agencies in charge of Western water did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment.
Conservation programs like the one sending money to California farmers have been key in boosting water supplies in major reservoirs. That is no small feat, as leaders of the states that use Colorado River water are caught in a legal standoff about how to share it going forward. They appear to be making little progress as they meet behind closed doors ahead of a 2026 deadline.
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A farm worker adjusts sprinkler heads spraying water that comes from the Colorado River Oct. 18, 2002 near El Centro, Calif.
David McNew/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
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David McNew/Getty Images/Getty Images North America
“Having this appropriated funding suddenly taken away undoes years and years of very careful collaboration among the states in the Colorado River Basin,” Castle said, “and threatens the sustainability of the entire system.”
In addition to those water conservation programs, the Inflation Reduction Act set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for projects aimed at keeping Colorado River tributaries clean and healthy. Conservation groups, small nonprofits, Native American tribes, and local governments were assigned federal money for a bevy of projects that included wildfire prevention and habitat restoration.
Sonja Chavez, general manager of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District, was expecting that money to make its way to her group for river improvement projects in Western Colorado.
“If there isn’t some resolution to the freeze or some additional guidance on what’s going to happen for folks,” she said, “we may have to put our entire programs on pause.”
Smaller watershed groups and their projects to restore and improve small sections of rivers are uniquely dependent on money from the federal government.
“Federal funding is critical because that’s the big money,” said Holly Loff, a grant writer in Western Colorado and the former director of the Eagle River Watershed Council. “No one can really compete with those big dollars, or very few other entities besides the federal government can fund at those levels.”
Small groups dependent on that federal funding have been scrambling to come up with contingency plans since it has been paused, and some of their leaders say the gap would be difficult to fill with money from donors or local governments.
Loff said a continued pause on funding would cause a lot of financial pain for communities near the Colorado River, such as those with economies dependent on water-based recreation, and people far away, like those who buy produce that is grown with Colorado River water.
“Our economy is going to be impacted,” she said. “It’s just far reaching. And I really can’t think of how anyone can avoid being impacted.”
Colorado
Here’s how northern Colorado schools spend federal education dollars
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While campaigning last year, President Donald Trump pledged to shutter the U.S. Department of Education. Now, his administration is attempting to reduce the funds it gives out, based on DEI efforts at the school district-level and has closed down one of the department’s research arms.
Recent news reports suggest that the president is preparing an executive order to shut down the Education Department completely.
Dollars from this department and others support Colorado schools; for this academic year, around 11% of funds came from the federal government. So, districts in northern Colorado are paying attention to what happens in Washington.
“PSD [Poudre School District] is closely monitoring federal communications to stay informed about any potential changes to district funding. If adjustments impact the district’s budget, we will respond accordingly and keep our community informed,” Poudre School District’s Chief of Staff Lauren Hooten, wrote in an email to KUNC.
‘Every dollar matters’
In Colorado, federal dollars feed kids at school, pay for teachers in lower income communities and fund services for students with special needs.
Poudre School District, located in Larimer County, receives around $30 million in federal funding which accounts for around five percent of its revenue. So far this year, those dollars have paid for special education programs and Title I grants, which help schools in lower-income communities pay for school supplies and literacy support, for example.
Department of Education dollars are also going toward school safety, homeless students and COVID-19 recovery. Additionally, over the course of the year, PSD is set to spend millions on providing free meals for students, a program which is paid for through both state taxes and federal funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), federal dollars make up around 3% to 4% of total expenses and are spent in a similar way to its neighbor in Larimer County. These funds go towards student health, food programs, and other services including early interventions for young children with developmental delays.
In an email, BVSD spokesperson Randy Barber noted that it would be premature to talk about how to make up for the loss of federal funds and that there are “a lot of moving parts.”
“In the Boulder Valley School District every dollar matters, especially in a time when school districts are significantly underfunded,” Barber wrote.
A recent state-backed study concluded that current funding falls short and that an additional $4 billion is needed to provide an adequate education for Colorado students.
‘Wait and see’
In Weld County, federal grants are perhaps more critical than in other northern Colorado districts; these dollars make up around eight percent of the revenue for Greeley-Evans School District 6.
“Federal funding is a significant part of the District 6 Budget. We are to receive over $30 million in federal dollars this year,” Superintendent Deirdre Pilch wrote in an email to KUNC.
In Greeley-Evans School District 6, federal grants pay for after-school programs offering enrichment for students like art and cooking. As in neighboring communities, Pilch noted that the larger allocations help students living in poverty, by paying for school nutrition programs and funding the hiring of teachers in those high-needs districts.
This district, which has many students who are learning English and who live in poverty, outlined the stakes in its most recent budget report:
“These various sub-groups often require additional time, intensity and rigorous educational programs to achieve academic proficiency. These programs in turn require additional budgetary resources…”
During the last school year, more than 70 percent of students in the district qualified for free or reduced lunch, a number that has risen significantly over the past two decades. Federal dollars pay for supplies like ingredients, utensils and cafeteria worker salaries.
“We are in a wait and see space right now,” Pilch wrote. “Federal funding is critical to our operations and having it pulled back would be significant.”
Colorado
Patriots Urged to Make Blockbuster Trade for Colorado Star
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The New England Patriots currently hold the No. 4 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. With that pick, they should be able to find a key impact player. However, losing out on the No. 1 pick by winning the final game of the season was a tough break.
Looking ahead to the draft, there is one player that most fans want above any other. Colorado Buffaloes star and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter is the player that many would like to see join the Patriots.
Drake Maye needs a legitimate No. 1 playmaker at wide receiver this offseason. Hunter would be that guy.
Unfortunately, there is a good chance that Hunter could end up being drafted before New England is on the clock at No. 4 overall.
With that in mind, Michael DeVito of Musket Fire has suggested that the Patriots could consider trying to trade up from No. 4 in order to land him.
“The argument is that Mike Vrabel should do whatever it takes to bring Travis Hunter, a generational talent, to Foxborough,” DeVito wrote. “Trade 2025 picks, 2026 picks, and players in the optimum combination you can to Tennessee to get the job done. You win with top players. Travis Hunter is the best player in the 2025 NFL draft. Make the deal.”
Making a strong move for Hunter does make sense. Tee Higgins is no longer expected to hit free agency, which takes the main target for New England at wide receiver off the board.
Pivoting to pursuing Hunter would be the kind of move that could take Maye and the offense to the next level.
During the 2024 season with Colorado, Hunter racked up 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns offensively. He also had a big year as a cornerback, totaling 35 tackles, a forced fumble, four interceptions, and 11 defended passes.
All of that being said, this will be a scenario to keep an eye on. Hunter to the Patriots would be an ideal fit for both parties and should be something New England tries to get done.
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