The act creates the geologic storage stewardship enterprise (enterprise) in the department of natural resources (department) for the purpose of: Determining the amount of annual stewardship fees; Funding the long-term stewardship of geologic storage facilities in the state; Funding the plugging, abandoning, reclaiming, and, as necessary, remediating of orphaned geologic storage facilities in the state if the energy and carbon management commission (commission), after notice and a hearing, determines that available financial assurance is insufficient; and Ensuring that costs associated with long-term stewardship of geologic storage facilities are borne by geologic storage operators in the form of stewardship fees. The act creates the geologic storage stewardship enterprise board (enterprise board) to administer the enterprise. The act requires each geologic storage operator to pay an annual stewardship fee for each ton of injection carbon dioxide that the geologic storage operator injects in the state. The commission collects the stewardship fee on the enterprise's behalf. All money collected as stewardship fees is credited to the geologic storage stewardship enterprise cash fund (fund), which is created in the act. Money in the fund is continuously appropriated to the enterprise. The enterprise shall adopt rules as necessary to implement the act and the commission may adopt rules to implement its collection of stewardship fees on behalf of the enterprise. The willful violation of a commission rule, regulation, permit, or order concerning class VI injection wells used for injecting carbon dioxide for underground storage is a misdemeanor subject to a fine of $5,000 to $7,000 per day for each act of violation. To approve a geologic storage operator's request to close a site, the commission must first determine that the geologic storage operator has contributed money to the fund. Upon the commission's approval of a site closure: Ownership of the injection carbon dioxide and ownership of any remaining facilities transfer to the state without payment of additional compensation; Except in specified circumstances, the geologic storage operator is released from all regulatory liability associated with the continued storage of the injection carbon dioxide and the long-term stewardship of the associated geologic storage facility; and The enterprise undertakes long-term stewardship of the injection carbon dioxide and any associated geologic storage facility. The act makes several updates to laws concerning the administration of underground geothermal resources, including: Clarifying that "nontributary groundwater" does not include "designated groundwater", as these terms are defined in current law; Exempting certain geothermal operations from needing a well permit from the state engineer; Requiring the state engineer to notify the operator of a prior geothermal operation of an application for a proposed well, and allowing the operator the opportunity to request a hearing if the application causes concern for material injury to the prior geothermal operation; Renaming the state board of examiners of water well construction and pump installation contractors as the "state board of examiners of water well and ground heat exchanger contractors" (state board of examiners); Establishing that the authority to regulate shallow geothermal operations is shared by the state engineer and the state board of examiners; and Regulating ground heat exchanger contractors in the same manner that currently exists for water well construction contractors and pump installation contractors.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Sponsored bills
The Tony Grampsas youth services grant program (grant program) provides grants to community-based programs to reduce incidents of youth crime and violence. The youth mentoring program, the student dropout prevention and intervention program, and the student before-and-after school project (collectively, the "programs") were created within the grant program. The act repeals the individual programs and instead lists the programs as allowable uses for grant money under the grant program. The act transfers certain responsibilities from the Tony Grampsas youth services board (board) to the department of human services (department). The act repeals local public-to-private funding match requirements. The act requires each entity that receives a grant to annually report certain information to the department; except that an entity that has an operating budget of less than $1.5 million, or that receives a grant in the amount of not more than $25,000, is not required to report on the outcomes achieved by the services provided and the methods used to track the outcomes. The act decreases the appropriation from the marijuana tax cash fund to the youth mentoring services cash fund by $500,000 and reappropriates the money to the grant program by $500,000. The act decreases the appropriation from the youth mentoring services cash fund to the grant program by $504,120. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act extends the achieving a better life experience state income tax deduction (ABLE deduction) until December 31, 2030. The act specifies that the purposes of the ABLE deduction are to provide support to individuals with disabilities and their families and to provide an incentive for individuals with disabilities and their families to set aside money in an account to cover future disability-related expenses. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
For alternative education campuses (AECs), the act: Directs the department of education (department), when administering state education grants, to allocate priority points to AECs; Authorizes AECs to include certain high-risk students in the AEC's pupil count who are 21 years of age or younger during the budget year; Requires the department to prepare and post an annual report on enrollment trends, student demographics, and student mobility in AECs; and Exempts an AEC from losing its designation due to a fluctuation in enrollment for one school year. The act appropriates $9,613 from the general fund to the department for accountability and improvement planning. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
Under current law, the "Protection of Individuals from Restraint and Seclusion Act" contains parameters concerning exceptions for the use of restraint and seclusion for various agencies, including for public schools. The act removes public schools from the "Protection of Individuals from Restraint and Seclusion Act" and creates the "Protection of Students from Restraint and Seclusion Act" that is specific to local education providers. The act: Prohibits any form of restraint, as defined in the act, (restraint) and seclusion, except as provided; Establishes guidelines for acceptable use of restraint and seclusion; Requires a local education provider that uses restraint or seclusion to train its employees and agents; Requires a local education provider to document instances of restraint or seclusion and notify the student's family of certain instances of restraint or seclusion; No later than July 1, 2025, requires each local education provider to establish an annual review process for their use of restraint and seclusion; and Annually, beginning June 30, 2026, requires each local education provider to submit a report to the department of education summarizing their use of restraint and seclusion. The state board of education shall adopt rules for the implementation of the act. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The statewide welcome, reception, and integration grant program provides grants to community-based organizations that provide culturally and linguistically appropriate navigation of services to migrants who have arrived in the United States within the past year and do not qualify for federal support services or refugee resettlement assistance benefits. The act removes the requirement that a migrant must have arrived in the United States within the past year and instead requires community-based organizations to prioritize assisting migrants who have arrived in the United States within the past 3 years. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act implements the recommendation of the department of regulatory agencies in its 2024 sunset review and report on the rural alcohol and substance abuse prevention and treatment program by continuing the program until September 1, 2030. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act implements the recommendation of the department of regulatory agencies in the department's 2024 sunset report that the title insurance commission be repealed. The act also requires the commissioner of insurance to hold twice each year a meeting of representatives of the title insurance industry, who are referred to as the "title insurance advisory group" (advisory group). The commissioner or the commissioner's designee must attend each of the 2 meetings, and the commissioner must respond in writing to formal, written proposals or recommendations presented to the commissioner by the advisory group at a meeting. The advisory group is repealed, effective September 1, 2029, subject to a sunset review. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act permits the state, a county, a city and county, a school district, or a municipality to, with approval from a school district's board of education, install and utilize automated vehicle identification systems (system) on the school district's school buses to detect a driver of a vehicle that overtakes a stopped school bus with actuated visual signal lights in violation of current law. A school district that installs and utilizes a system for this purpose must enter into a memorandum of understanding with one or more law enforcement agencies. If a system detects a violation, the state, a county, a city and county, or a municipality may impose a civil penalty of up to $300. The act creates a rebuttable presumption that when an image produced by a system includes an electronic indicator signifying that a school bus's visual signal lights are actuated, the visual signal lights are presumed to be actuated and operational and the school bus is presumed to be stopped to receive or discharge school children. The act mandates that the fines collected through the use of the system must not be used as the basis for the compensation to the system manufacturer or vendor and that the compensation must not be based exclusively upon the number of citations issued or revenue generated by the system.(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)
The act requires the director of the division of oil and public safety in the department of labor and employment (division) to adopt rules concerning retail electric vehicle charging that set forth minimum standards relating to specifications and tolerances for retail electric vehicle charging equipment and methods of retail sale at publicly accessible electric vehicle charging stations to promote consistency in the marketplace by July 1, 2026, and to enforce the rules beginning July 1, 2027. The act broadens the allowable uses of money in the electric vehicle grant fund within the Colorado energy office to include: Operational and policy work to support electric vehicle adoption, electric vehicle charging, and affordable, clean electricity for electric motor vehicles, including covering the administrative costs of this work; and Support for the development and enforcement of retail electric vehicle charging rules by the division. The act also broadens the allowable uses of money in the community impact cash fund within the department of public health and environment to include environmental equity and cumulative impact analyses. The act also requires the community access enterprise within the Colorado energy office to reduce the amount of the community access retail delivery fee that it imposes as necessary to ensure that the enterprise does not collect more than $100 million in total fee revenue prior to June 30, 2026. For the 2025-26 state fiscal year, $225,320 is appropriated to the department of labor and employment for use by the division for personal services and operating expenses. This appropriation is from reappropriated funds received from the office of the governor that are continuously appropriated to the Colorado energy office from the electric vehicle grant fund. (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)