Colorado Legislature Passes Nation-Leading Energy Advancements, Wildlife Protections & Water Conservation Measures
Legislative Accomplishments: May 2025
In a year of change and uncertainty at the federal level, paired with significant budget constraints at the state level, the First Regular Session of the 75th General Assembly made clear that the protection of Colorado’s natural resources remains a top priority. In partnership with legislative leaders, the state advanced historic legislation to lead our state towards healthier forests and watersheds, greater biodiversity, a cleaner energy portfolio, more sustainable water resource management, increased partnership with our resident Tribal Nations, and a more sustainable and accessible outdoor recreation economy that is core to many Colorado communities.
This year, the Colorado General Assembly approved a variety of strategies and almost $73 million in additional investments through special bills and specific budget requests to equip the state with the tools and resources necessary to take on these challenges.
Protecting and Conserving our Water Resources
SB25-054, Mining Reclamation & Interstate Compact
DNR’s Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS) estimates there are over 23,000 abandoned mines across the state and 1,800 miles of streams impaired due to acid mine drainage related pollutants. Approximately 5,000 of these sites could be reclaimed to reduce the impacts to surface waters and watersheds. This bill modernizes and improves the regulation of mining in Colorado, including by creating a new reclamation permit to encourage the clean-up of old and abandoned mining waste piles that can minimize the impact that historic mining conditions have on our State’s watershed health.
HB25-1115, Water Supply Measurement & Forecasting Program
Water supply forecasting, measuring snowpack, and floodplain mapping are critical for water management in Colorado, where the primary water supply and stream flow comes from winter snowpack. Currently, water supply forecasting and measurement work is done in a patchwork manner across the state. This bill authorizes the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB or the Board) to lead the management of a statewide snowpack measurement program that will allow for the collection and dissemination of highly accurate, valuable water supply data to better manage our state’s water resources, maximize beneficial uses of these resources, and support flood related public safety measures.
SB25-283, Colorado Water Conservation Board Annual Projects Bill
The General Assembly annually authorizes water projects from the Construction Fund and the Severance Tax Perpetual Base Fund. This year’s “CWCB Projects Bill” includes approximately $69 million in funding for important CWCB Programs and Projects. This includes $29 million in Water Plan Grant funding; $6 million to support for the Republican River irrigated acreage retirement to meet interstate compact commitments; $1.4 million for a Statewide Turf Analysis; $2 million for Water Forecasting; $5.5 million for Water Plan Update efforts, $5 million for Wildfire Ready Watersheds, and $2 million for the Yampa River/Walton Creek Confluence Restoration Project.
SB25-040, Future of Severance Taxes & Water Funding Task Force
A significant source of water funding in Colorado is generated from oil and gas, or severance tax, revenue. Severance tax revenue that flows to the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB) supports critical infrastructure improvements and projects that advance the goals laid out in the Colorado Water Plan, which identifies $50 million in annual unmet need to fund water projects across the state currently. This bill recognizes the volatility of this fund source, and the importance of continued water funding to ensure a clean and reliable supply of water for cities, farms, and industry. It does so by giving CWCB the opportunity to develop a study and work with partners to explore ways to continue funding water needs in the face of decreasing severance tax revenue. This study will also consider the long term funding needs of local governments, another major beneficiary of severance tax revenue.
HB25-1014, Increasing Efficiency Division of Water Resources
DNR’s Division of Water Resources (DWR), also known as the Office of the State Engineer, is responsible for administering water rights, issuing water well permits and licenses for well drillers, monitoring streamflow and water use, approving construction and repair of dams and wells, and maintaining numerous databases of Colorado water information, among other important duties. This bill implements process efficiencies to simplify, modernize and streamline various work processes related to well construction permitting, the water rights abandonment process, and groundwater permitting. These changes will save stakeholders, DWR, and Attorney General staff time and money.
Advancing Our Climate and Energy Goals and Reducing Pollution
HB25-1165, Geologic Storage Enterprise & Geothermal Resources
This bill continues Colorado’s efforts to enable effective and safe carbon sequestration and geothermal development. It does so by creating a process for long-term stewardship of CO2 storage sites through a dedicated fund funded by CO2 storage operators that ensures carbon storage facilities are safe long into the future, advanced our state’s climate goals, relieves state taxpayers of a burden to manage these sites, and provides certainty to operators. The bill also streamlines geothermal development in a manner consistent with Colorado’s values by minimizing costs, ensuring permitting is fit to purpose, advancing safety and public protections, and clarifying regulatory authority across State agencies while ensuring prior geothermal operations such as our treasured historic hot springs remain vibrant into the future.
Wildfire Mitigation and Forest Health
SB25-206, 2025-2026 Long Appropriations Bill
The Long Bill hosts two critical forestry and wildfire mitigation programs: The Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation (FRWRM) and the Colorado Strategic Wildfire Action Program (COSWAP). The 2025-2026 Long Appropriations Bill maintains the current funding levels for both programs, with FRWRM at $8 million annually and COSWAP at $5 million annually. These state funded grant programs are essential for cross boundary wildfire mitigation and forest health improvement projects on all landownerships in Colorado.
Improving Wildlife Science, Research and Conservation Efforts
SB25-168, Prevention of Wildlife Trafficking
Wildlife trafficking, or the illegal trade, smuggling, poaching, capture, or collection of wildlife, is a serious transnational crime that poses significant threats to wildlife around the world and also within Colorado’s own borders. This bill provides CPW with additional enforcement and management capacity, tools and penalties to help curb the harmful import of non-native or invasive species, protect native ecosystems, and interrupt a growing black market for commercialized wildlife and wildlife parts that crosses state and international boundaries.
HB25-1318, Species Conservation Trust Fund Projects
This annual DNR department bill appropriates $5 million for research, study, and recovery programs dedicated to native species that are, or are likely to become, state or federally threatened or endangered. The bill funds aquatic and terrestrial wildlife conservation projects to protect and recover these sensitive species in Colorado, including $2,480,000 for the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program; $1,250,000 for native terrestrial wildlife conservation; and $1,250,000 for native aquatic wildlife conservation.
SB25-049, Continue Wildlife Habitat Stamp Program
The Colorado Wildlife Habitat Stamp was created in 2006 to help address the need to conserve Colorado’s wildlife habitat and ensure Coloradans and visitors can continue to enjoy wildlife-related recreation for generations to come. State statute creating the Colorado Wildlife Habitat Stamp Program was set to repeal in 2027, but this bill permanently continues the Program to ensure sustainable funding for protecting critical wildlife habitat and providing access for wildlife-related recreation for years to come.
The American Bison is the largest Colorado mammal and with economic and cultural significant in our state. While Colorado does not have an established herd of wild bison, there is a wild free-ranging bison herd that enters into Colorado from the Bookcliffs region of Utah. Currently, all bison in Colorado are classified as livestock. This bill recognizes the cultural significance of bison and the unique status of the Utah herd members that cross over into Colorado by allowing for the regulated management of these animals as wildlife.
HB25-1023, Local Government Review of Fencing Projects
Certain large-scale fence construction projects can have negative impacts on wildlife movement and migration when not properly sited or designed. This bill aims to ensure such fencing projects align with community values by adding a new local government review process, which enables a proactive approach to minimizing wildlife and ecosystem impacts from these projects. It is geographically limited to an area of the state where this issue has been of particular concern.
Strengthening Tribal Engagement
HB25-1163, Free Access to State Parks for Colorado Ute Tribes
Indigenous people have stewarded the lands and natural and cultural resources that are now located in Colorado since time immemorial. This includes State Park public lands, that are ancestral lands to many. There are two federally recognized Tribal Nations with reservation lands and reserved treaty rights in Colorado: The Southern Ute Indian Tribe (SUIT) and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (UMUT). The SUIT and UMUT are the oldest continuous residents of what is now known as the State of Colorado, and the Ute people do not have a migration story. As experienced by many different Tribal Nations, through a series of treaties with the United States, the original Ute homelands were severely restricted to the reservation lands that are now present today. The Ute people have profound cultural and spiritual connections to their ancestral lands and have been natural resources stewards for time immemorial. This bill takes a first step in advancing a reparative action by waiving the entrance fee to all Colorado state parks for enrolled Tribal members of the SUIT and UMUT, to support ancestral lands reconnection and formally recognize the profound cultural and spiritual connections to the land that have been preserved through Ute traditional knowledge, oral histories, and language for generations. A commitment to an ongoing dialogue on all state park matters, including entry fees, through continuing consultation efforts with Tribal Nations and outreach and engagement with greater American Indian and Indigenous communities in Colorado is also included in the bill, as this legislation is a first step and not intended to erase or negate the substantial ties that other Tribal Nations have to ancestral lands in Colorado, nor the relationship that exists between American Indian and Indigenous Colorado residents to these ancestral lands.
Advancing Conservation and Outdoor Recreation Opportunities for All
HB25-1215, Redistribution of Lottery Fund
The Colorado Outdoor Equity Grant Program (OEGP) within Colorado Parks and Wildlife funds organizations and projects that improve access, representation, meaningful participation, and quality experiences for youth and their families in the Colorado outdoors, with a focus on historically underserved traditionally-excluded populations. This bill reformulates distribution of Colorado lottery funds to add to DNR’s $1.3 million in additional funding secured through this year’s budget, to further enhance OEGP funding while balancing other CPW needs and priorities. The bill also establishes a new strategic outdoor recreation management and infrastructure cash fund within CPW to help address key outdoor recreation infrastructure and management needs.
HB25-1332 State Trust Land Conservation & Recreation Work Group
The bill requires DNR to convene a state trust lands conservation and recreation work group to study opportunities to advance conservation, climate resilience, biodiversity, and sustainable, equitable, and low-conflict recreation on state trust lands in accordance with Colorado’s Outdoor Strategy. The work group must conduct the study in a manner consistent with the State Land Board’s fiduciary responsibility to produce reasonable and consistent revenue for trust beneficiaries, and make recommendations to the State Land Board, the Governor, the General Assembly, and the Executive Director of the department based on the study.
State Parks, Wildlife, Water & Workforce Investments
SB25-206, the Long Bill continued last year’s trend of investment in the Department of Natural Resources’ strongest asset – our human capital and reflects our first large scale funding from Keep Colorado Wild revenue, the highly successful program offering $29 State Parks passes offered during vehicle registration. These funds are earmarked for state park and recreation management and enhancements, wildlife conservation, support for search and rescue, avalanche forecasting and safety programs, and helps grow outdoor accessibility and education programs in local communities.
Increased State Parks and Recreation Staffing and Capital Construction (CPW) - $26.1 million cash funds and 31.7 FTE
- Increase state park operating budgets and staffing to support increased park visitation with hundreds of new acres, dozens of new campsites and capital construction projects across state parks.
- Increase education programming with new community engagement staff members who will provide volunteer, interpretive, and education programs in parks across Colorado.
Wildlife Conservation and Management (CPW) - $33.9 million cash funds and 11.1 FTE
- Increases operational staffing focused on wildlife management, habitat conservation and wildlife conflict resolution. Provides funding to improve infrastructure and facilities on state wildlife areas and CPW offices.
Support for Colorado’s Water (CWCB and DWR) - $119,933 General Fund, $102,759 cash funds and 0.9 FTE
- Provides necessary funding to reclassify 36 water commissioner positions to adjust for the increased complexity of water administration in Colorado.
- Adds a scientist within the Colorado Water Conservation Board to assist with a technical update that will inform the 2033 Colorado Water Plan.
Partnership with Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) - $10.4M net-neutral General Fund
- Moves three budget lines from the Higher Education section of the Long Bill to DNR’s section, to enable more efficient and effective management of CSFS’ budget and legislative requests.
Outdoor Equity Grant Program Funding (CPW) - $1.3 million cash funds and 0.9 FTE
- This funding will support a new grants specialist and a $1.0 million (33.3 percent) increase in funding for grant awards.
State Land Board Working Lands Internships (SLB) - $177,585 cash funds
- Create an internship program at the State Land Board to allow SLB staff to work with early-career adults to learn and apply the skills of working lands management to the division’s existing recreation, conservation, renewable energy and housing leasing portfolio found on 2.8 million acres of trust lands. This will fund three interns to work full-time for up to nine months of the year.