The next time someone admonishes you to “follow the science” in safeguarding the environment, you might tell them about the latest proceedings of the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission.

The commission, which plays a pivotal role in setting our state’s air quality standards, purports to be science driven. Yet, science had little to do with a new — and potentially costly — policy tentatively adopted by commissioners at a hearing last week. The commissioners admitted as much.

The policy could lead to onerous regulations on some key economic sectors like oil-and-gas production, wastewater processing and medical equipment sterilization. Yet, the commission’s designation Friday of five so-called toxic air contaminants for eventual regulation was based on little more than the commission’s expressed desire to appear sensitive to underprivileged communities.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the whole category of supposed pollutants known as “toxic air contaminants” was conjured up in state law just a few years ago by the non-scientists who serve in Colorado’s Legislature. Their House Bill 22-1244 explicitly gave the commission marching orders to “identify by rule up to five toxic air contaminants that may pose a risk of harm to public health…”

That’s right; the Legislature sent state regulators on a hunting expedition without a clue as to what they were supposed to be looking for.

Under the gun from lawmakers, the commission’s staff came up with a short list of substances like formaldehyde and benzene. They’re among the many widely used compounds that may cause cancer or other maladies if consumed intensively in some form or fashion. But they likely are harmless to the public’s health in trace amounts in the air.

In fact, the 2022 bill’s summary makes clear lawmakers weren’t even sure whether any of the substances the state’s regulators might come up with were in the air at all. So, the bill charged the division with developing, “a monitoring program to determine the concentration of toxic air contaminants in the ambient air of the state.” A case of ready, fire, aim.

Lawmakers only seemed sure that whatever might be in the air should be regulated. Accordingly, health-based standards for the presumed contaminants will be developed by September of this year under the legislation, followed by the enactment of emission-control rules for those contaminants in 2026.

As reported by The Colorado Chamber of Commerce’s Sum & Substance news service, business leaders have been left to wonder why the state is moving ahead with regulations before it even knows how feasible or possible it is to control the compounds on the new list.

That didn’t matter to most of the commissioners, who also heard at Friday’s meeting from “environmental justice” activists claiming to represent north Denver’s low-income residents. The activists claimed the residents suffer from headaches and nosebleeds from contaminants.

Naturally, the activists support the pending regulations even though they, like the commissioners, haven’t any idea if the effort serves a purpose other than to saddle businesses with an impossible mandate.

As Sum & Substance also reported, one of the commissioners, pulmonary medicine Professor Tony Gerber, dared to speak up. He questioned the inclusion of hydrogen sulfide on the list of redlined compounds when no one was able to link it to any of the ills cited by activists.

But fellow Commissioners Jon Slutsky and Elise Jones weren’t about to let science — or even common sense — intrude. Slutsky said the regulations were about addressing concerned citizens’ mental health as well as their physical health. Jones said including hydrogen sulfide would let lower-income communities know the state is listening to them.

“We as a state are putting a huge priority on righting environmental wrongs and prioritizing communities that have been disproportionately impacted,” Jones said. “We don’t have to sit here and say there’s causality; we can sit here and say there’s concern. And I think that’s important in building trust.”

In other words, science be damned — it’s about politics.

The Gazette Editorial Board