§ 43-4-1201 — Legislative declaration
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(1) The general assembly hereby finds
and declares that:
(a) Retail deliveries are increasing and are expected to continue to increase
in communities across the state;
(b) The motor vehicles used to make retail deliveries are some of the most
polluting vehicles on the road, which has resulted in additional and increasing air
and greenhouse gas pollution;
(c) The adverse environmental and health impacts of increased emissions
from motor vehicles used to make retail deliveries can be mitigated and offset by
supporting the widespread adoption of electric buses for transit fleets and
reducing vehicle miles traveled by encouraging people to choose clean, efficient,
public transit options instead of personal motor vehicle travel;
(d) Instead of reducing the impacts of retail deliveries by limiting retail
delivery activity through regulation, it is more appropriate to continue to allow
persons who receive retail deliveries to benefit from the convenience afforded by
unfettered retail deliveries and instead impose a small fee on each retail delivery
and use fee revenue to fund necessary mitigation activities;
(e) It is necessary, appropriate, and in the best interest of the state and all
Coloradans to incentivize, support, and accelerate the electrification of public
transit in rural and urban areas throughout the state because electrification:
(I) Reduces emissions of air pollutants, including hazardous air pollutants
and greenhouse gases, that contribute to adverse environmental effects, including
but not limited to climate change, and adverse human health effects in and
between communities, including communities near high-use transit corridors and
disproportionately impacted communities, and helps the state meet its statutory
greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets and comply with air quality attainment
standards; and
(II) By reducing fuel and maintenance costs associated with the use of motor
vehicles, helps public transit providers operate more efficiently, use cost savings to
provide more reliable and convenient transit service to more riders, and further
reduce emissions by reducing personal motor vehicle use; and
(f) By reducing motor vehicle emissions, transit fleet electrification
effectively remediates some of the impacts of retail deliveries by offsetting a
portion of the increased motor vehicle emissions resulting from such deliveries.
(1.5) The general assembly further finds and declares that:
(a) Scientific and government agency studies, including the national climate
assessment and the Colorado Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap,
published by the Colorado energy office and dated January 14, 2021, confirm that oil
and gas operations can create significant environmental and other adverse impacts,
including greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change and
emissions of local air pollutants that are ozone precursors;
(b) According to modeling conducted by the division of administration in the
department of public health and environment in 2023, oil and gas development is
the leading anthropogenic source of ozone precursors in Colorado's ozone
nonattainment areas and is responsible for forty-one percent of volatile organic
compound emissions and forty-five percent of nitrogen oxide emissions;
(c) The adverse impacts of oil and gas production affect both urban and rural
communities, justifying investment in transit service improvements in communities
across the state to reduce local pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions and
benefit disproportionately impacted communities;
(d) The oil and gas industry is the third-largest source of greenhouse gas
emissions in the state;
(e) In the 2019 legislative session, the general assembly passed House Bill
19-1261, which recognized that climate change adversely affects Colorado's
economy, air quality, public health, ecosystems, natural resources, and quality of
life and set science-based goals of reducing statewide greenhouse gas pollution,
from 2005 levels, by twenty-six percent by 2025, fifty percent by 2030, and ninety
percent by 2050. Through Senate Bill 23-016, enacted in 2023, the general
assembly updated these goals to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by
2050 with interim reduction goals of sixty-five percent by 2035, seventy-five
percent by 2040, and ninety percent by 2045, measured against 2005 statewide
greenhouse gas pollution levels.
(f) According to the Colorado Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction
Roadmap 2.0, published by the Colorado energy office in February 2024, current
policy and future commitments through 2026 alone are unlikely to achieve the
state's 2025 and 2030 greenhouse gas emission reduction goals without further
actions to reduce emissions associated with transportation, and the roadmap's list
of near-term actions necessary to meet those goals includes policies and programs
that expand and increase public transit service, passenger rail service, and
ridership;
(g) Reducing vehicle trips by encouraging the use of public transit helps to
lower ozone-forming and greenhouse gas emissions. According to An Update on
Public Transportation's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, published by the
national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine in 2021, Colorado transit
agencies operating in Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Greeley, and Pueblo
collectively reduced six hundred twenty-four thousand nine hundred forty-two
metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018.
(h) Policy directive 1610.0, published by the Colorado department of
transportation and effective May 19, 2022, estimates twenty-three metric tons of
greenhouse gas emission reductions for every one thousand additional vehicle-revenue-hours of new transit service delivered by a zero-emission vehicle and
eighteen metric tons for every one thousand additional vehicle-revenue-hours of
new transit service delivered by a diesel-powered vehicle;
(i) According to the Zero Fare for Better Air 2023 Evaluation Report,
published by the regional transportation district on November 30, 2023, the two-month zero fare for better air program resulted in a twelve percent increase in
ridership and a total reduction of nine million fourteen thousand three hundred
seventy vehicle miles traveled, two thousand five hundred eighty-three pounds of
volatile organic compounds, two thousand three hundred eighty-five pounds of
nitrous oxides, and six million one hundred sixty-one thousand seven hundred
seventy-two pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, which demonstrates a direct
relationship between increased transit ridership and reduced air pollution and
greenhouse gas emissions;
(j) Numerous studies have found that, in addition to the direct impact on
pollution due to replacing individual vehicle trips with trips on transit, there are
large additional impacts that come from the indirect effect that transit has on
enabling more dense land use near transit stops and stations, which reduces trip
lengths and increases the share of trips taken by walking, bicycling, and using
transit. For example, An Update on Public Transit's Impacts on Greenhouse Gas
Emissions, published in 2021 by the national academies of sciences, engineering,
and medicine, found that the indirect impacts of transit increased the emission
reductions by an amount more than seven times larger than the direct reductions.
(k) To mitigate some of the adverse environmental and health impacts of air
pollution and greenhouse gas emissions caused by oil and gas operations, it is
necessary, appropriate, equitable, and in the best interest of all Coloradans to
impose fees on oil and gas produced in the state.
(2) The general assembly further finds and declares that:
(a) In order to incentivize, support, and accelerate the electrification and
availability of public transit and thereby reap the environmental, health, business,
and operational efficiency benefits of electrification and wider availability of public
transit, it is necessary, appropriate, and in the best interest of the state to create a
clean transit enterprise that can provide specialized remediation and other services
that help public transit providers fund the construction of the charging
infrastructure needed to support electrification, the acquisition of electric motor
vehicles, and the remediation services described in section 43-4-1204;
(b) The specific focus of the enterprise is the equitable reduction and
mitigation of the adverse environmental and health impacts of air pollution and
greenhouse gas emissions through incentivization, support, and acceleration of the
electrification of public transit in rural and urban areas throughout the state and
through the implementation of the remediation services described in section 43-4-1204;
(c) The enterprise provides impact remediation services when, in exchange
for the payment of clean transit retail delivery fees by or on behalf of purchasers of
tangible personal property for retail delivery, it acts to mitigate the impacts of
residential and commercial deliveries on the state's transportation infrastructure,
air quality, and emissions by:
(I) Making grants or loans or providing rebates to fund the acquisition of
clean, quiet, and cost-efficient electric motor vehicles for use in transit fleets and
the construction of charging infrastructure that supports the use of such electric
motor vehicles for public transit and thereby:
(A) Improving transportation options for fee payers and the general public,
making transit more attractive to new or infrequent users, and reducing personal
motor vehicle emissions; and
(B) By making transit more attractive, reducing traffic congestion, which
allows more timely and efficient retail deliveries, further reduces emissions of air
pollutants and greenhouse gas pollutants from motor vehicles, and reduces and
mitigates the adverse environmental and health impacts of such emissions;
(II) Contributing in a unique and targeted way to the implementation of the
comprehensive regulatory scheme required for the planning, funding, development,
construction, maintenance, and supervision of a sustainable transportation system;
and
(III) Providing additional remediation services to offset impacts caused by
fee payers as may be provided by law;
(c.5) The enterprise provides the remediation services described in section
43-4-1204 in exchange for payment of the production fees for clean transit, which
are used to partially mitigate the impacts of oil and gas operations on the
environment through the implementation of actions related to public transit,
including investment in public transit to achieve the level of frequent, convenient,
and reliable transit that is known to increase transit ridership by replacing car trips
with bus and rail trips;
(d) By providing remediation services as authorized by this section, the clean
transit enterprise engages in an activity conducted in the pursuit of a benefit, gain,
or livelihood and therefore operates as a business in accordance with the
determination of the Colorado supreme court in Colorado Union of Taxpayers
Foundation v. City of Aspen, 2018 CO 36;
(e) Consistent with the determination of the Colorado supreme court in Nicholl v. E-470 Public Highway Authority , 896 P.2d 859 (Colo. 1995), that the power
to impose taxes is inconsistent with enterprise status under section 20 of article X
of the state constitution, it is the conclusion of the general assembly that the
revenue collected by the enterprise is generated by fees, not taxes, because the
clean transit retail delivery fee imposed by the enterprise as authorized by section
43-4-1203 (7) and the production fee for clean transit are:
(I) Imposed for the specific purpose of allowing the enterprise to defray the
costs of providing the remediation services specified in this section, including
mitigating impacts to air quality and greenhouse gas emissions caused by the
activities on which the fee is assessed, and contributes to the implementation of the
comprehensive regulatory scheme required for the planning, funding, development,
construction, maintenance, and supervision of a sustainable transportation system
specified in this section; and
(II) Collected at rates that are reasonably calculated based on the impacts
caused by fee payers and the cost of remediating those impacts;
(f) So long as the enterprise qualifies as an enterprise for purposes of
section 20 of article X of the state constitution, the revenue from the clean transit
retail delivery fee collected by the enterprise is not state fiscal year spending, as
defined in section 24-77-102 (17), or state revenues, as defined in section 24-77-103.6 (6)(c), and does not count against either the state fiscal year spending limit
imposed by section 20 of article X of the state constitution or the excess state
revenues cap, as defined in section 24-77-103.6 (6)(b)(I)(D); and
(g) The addition of the production fee for clean transit continues to serve the
enterprise's primary business purposes set forth in section 43-4-1203 (3)(a). If the
addition of the production fee for clean transit combined with the clean transit
retail delivery fee is estimated to result in the collection of fees and surcharges
that exceed one hundred million dollars in the enterprise's first five fiscal years, the
board shall adjust the fees, lower the fees, or stop collecting the fees in order to
not collect fees or surcharges that exceed one hundred million dollars in the
enterprise's first five fiscal years, which five-year period, for the purpose of section
24-77-108, ends on June 30, 2026. Therefore, the enterprise, originally created in
section 43-4-1203, is in compliance with section 24-77-108.
Colorado § 43-4-1201 (Legislative declaration) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.