Longer and more destructive wildfire seasons. Extended stretches of 80-degree fall days. A 20-year drought. Shrinking water supplies.
Coloradans are already seeing the effects of climate change in their communities and on beloved public lands. The 2024 presidential election — along with congressional and other races — will have implications for energy, federal lands and climate policies that will affect millions of people in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West.
“The differences between the two candidates are pretty stark,” said Robert Duffy, a political science professor at Colorado State University who studies environmental policy, of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
Harris, the Democratic nominee, calls climate change an existential threat and helped pass a major funding package to address the issue; it has funneled millions of dollars to Colorado projects.
Trump, who’s again the GOP nominee, has said it’s all a hoax — and is among Republicans who prioritize energy development and the extraction of natural resources over the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change, the environment and natural resources as a category were among the top concerns identified in the Voter Voices survey conducted this year by 30 news outlets across the state, including The Denver Post.
In Colorado, scientists say climate change will result in decreased river flows, which will impact farmers and cities as well as businesses’ ability to obtain the water they need. It will extend the wildfire season and create conditions optimal for more destructive blazes.
“If nothing is done to stem the devastation of global climate change, none of the other issues, political or otherwise, matter because there will be no world left to fight about,” said survey respondent Kathy Donald of Lakewood, who identified environmental issues as her top election concern.
The president wields major power over climate and environmental policymaking by appointing heads of departments, setting budget priorities and overseeing rulemaking in regulatory agencies, Duffy said. The heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Agriculture, among others, set priorities on enforcement, the use of public lands and forest management.
The president also decides how much the U.S. will participate in international climate talks and goal-setting — or whether to participate at all.
Drastically different visions
Neither major presidential candidate has included in-depth plans or proposals on their websites to deal with climate change, energy, public lands or environmental issues. But their overarching plans contrast sharply.
Harris’ platform references her record as California’s attorney general, in which she won millions of dollars in settlements against oil companies and polluters. She pledged to continue U.S. participation in global climate talks and “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis.” If elected, Harris says she will protect public lands, improve the country’s resiliency to climate disasters and lower energy costs.
Trump’s campaign website says he promises to cut costly and burdensome regulations, and he wants make the U.S. “the dominant energy producer in the world” by expanding oil, gas and coal power production. He would also end the Biden administration’s rule that cuts vehicle emissions — and encourages more sales of electric vehicles — by further limiting the amount of pollution allowed to escape through vehicle tailpipes through 2032. Climate change is neither named nor referenced in his platform.
Trump’s platform says he will end President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which the White House described as “the largest investment in clean energy and climate action ever.” Harris, in her platform, touts her role as the tie-breaking vote that passed the act in the Senate.
The law poured more than $370 billion into clean energy, water projects, climate-resilient agriculture and forestry, and the protection of communities from climate-driven disasters.
Trump last month said that, if elected, he would rescind any Inflation Reduction Act money not yet spent by the time he takes office.
In Colorado, about $1.7 billion in Inflation Reduction Act money has funded expansion of projects that place solar panels on working agricultural land, has paid for tree planting in urban areas and has provided tax credits for home electrification. The act also paid for better methane monitoring in the state, expanded solar panel and wind turbine manufacturing, and tax credits for more than 66,000 Colorado households to increase their energy efficiency, according to U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper’s office.
Water is low at Grand Lake near Granby on Sept. 4, 2024. Water flows out of Grand Lake into the Colorado River. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Water providers on the Western Slope are applying for $40 million to help pay for the purchase of Colorado River water rights they believe are critical for water security in the region. Across the seven-state Colorado River basin — which is struggling to adapt to flows shrunken by climate change and drought — the law provided more than $4 billion to address drought on the river, which provides water for 40 million people.
The Biden administration has made good strides over the last four years to adapt to climate change and protect Colorado’s public lands, said Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat running for reelection who serves on the House’s Natural Resources Committee.
As examples, he cited Biden’s decision to dedicate Camp Hale as a national monument and his administration’s withdrawal of a broad swath of federal land from new oil and gas development across the Thompson Divide.
“There couldn’t be a more stark contrast when it comes to protecting our public lands and protecting our progress,” Neguse said.
Some seek less federal involvement
Two Republican candidates to represent Colorado in Congress have echoed Trump’s vision supporting increased production of pollution-heavy oil, gas and coal. Their concern includes the tens of thousands of jobs directly tied to oil and gas in the state.
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents the 3rd Congressional District and is running for a seat in the 4th District, focused in her response to The Denver Post’s candidate questionnaire on her opposition to “the Green New Deal schemes that would crush our oil and gas workers and further regulate our rural communities into poverty.” She has previously denied the existence of human-caused climate change.
A large Crestone Peak Resources drilling operation, with large noise-dampening walls, operates with Longs Peak in the background near Frederick, Colorado, in 2017. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction lawyer who is running for Boebert’s current seat, highlighted a need for domestic energy production as a matter of national security. Hurd wrote in his questionnaire response that the need to address climate change could be balanced with economic growth.
Permitting and regulatory reform can aid responsible energy production of all types, he said, including those that are renewable. His Democratic opponent, Adam Frisch, similarly advocates an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy.
“Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District is uniquely positioned to lead: we have key resources for responsible energy development, including high-quality coal, natural gas, uranium, and minerals crucial to renewable projects,” Hurd wrote. “This can result in reliable, abundant, and affordable energy that replaces higher-carbon fuels abroad.”
While Trump’s official campaign platform lacks many policy specifics, an outside plan for his presidency — created by former members of his administration and conservative thinkers — offer a broad swath of proposed policy changes that would greatly affect the West.
In Project 2025, a former Trump-era EPA official wrote the chapter on the nation’s top environmental regulation body. Trump’s former acting BLM director — who has advocated for selling off public lands — wrote the chapter on the Interior Department, which manages 400 national parks, 560 national wildlife refuges and nearly 250 million acres of other public lands.
Project 2025 proposes reforming U.S. Forest Service wildfire management by increasing logging and timber sales to reduce fire fuels; reversing the ban on new gas and oil development in Colorado’s Thompson Divide; and moving the BLM’s headquarters back to Grand Junction, where it was during the Trump administration. Other proposals include enacting laws allowing the BLM to “dispose humanely” of mustangs, revisiting Biden’s national monument designations and reducing federal protections for some endangered species.
Trump has denied any connection to Project 2025, but Duffy said the people who authored the plan would likely be the same people Trump would hire into his second administration.
“It’s basically a blueprint, though Trump is denying it,” he said.
Firefighters work on fighting the Alexander Mountain fire near Sylvan Dale Ranch burning west of Loveland on July 30, 2024. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Climate as a sidelined issue?
Voters in the West consistently rank the environment and climate issues as one of their top election priorities, multiple polls show.
Colorado College’s State of the Rockies Conservation in the West poll earlier this year found that 66% of voters across eight Rocky Mountain states, including Colorado, thought climate change had had significant effects on their states in the last decade. Voters from across the political spectrum said a candidate’s stance on conservation issues would be an important factor in their voting decision.
Related Articles
Where to find climate change on your ballot if that’s a top voting concern
Wind and solar would replace most of Xcel’s troubled Comanche 3 coal plant power — but not all
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette seeks 15th term against latest GOP challenger, says she’s not ready to retire
U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse faces repeat election challenge from tech worker in Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District
Opinion: Wyoming’s pro-pollution policies truly boggle the mind
According to 2023 polling from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 72% of Americans believe global warming is happening and 58% believe warming is primarily caused by human activity. More than half of those polled said global warming should be a high priority for the next president and Congress.
Yet, so far in this election cycle, climate and environmental issues have taken a back seat to immigration, inflation and the direction of the nation, Duffy said.
He thought climate change would take its rightful place as a central campaign issue once people started experiencing its real-world effects.
“Usually the sort of things that put anything on the political agenda is an event or a crisis,” he said. “And we’ve had repeated climate-related disasters and catastrophes over the years, and people look at it and then look away. There’s never any sustained discussion about the causes. Maybe it’s because the solutions are complicated and expensive.”
Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.