“It’s pretty tight right now,” Polis spokesperson Conor Cahill wrote in a Sept. Senior officials at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which oversees the APCD, also declined repeated interview requests, as did officials with Gov. Its director, Garry Kaufman, has participated only in rare interviews on select topics, and the division hasn’t held any press conferences or other media availabilities this year. The division has declined or ignored more than a dozen separate Newsline interview requests since July. As the agency regulating Front Range air quality, it faces an imminent federal downgrade reclassifying the region as a “severe” violator of the Clean Air Act.Īll of this has unfolded as Colorado has experienced its smoggiest summer in more than a decade.Īnd the APCD’s leadership doesn’t want to talk about any of it.Īs polluted air has choked the skies above the Front Range in 2021, a similarly thick haze has settled over the APCD, shrouding the agency’s operations and decision-making in secrecy. In July, it abruptly withdrew a pending transportation-emissions rule in a procedural maneuver that state lawyers said was unprecedented. Several of its own employees have filed a formal whistleblower complaint that has prompted both state and federal investigations. Within the last year, the APCD has been sued by multiple environmental groups that accuse it of failing to implement critical climate legislation. It’s important work that provokes strong opinions and sharp disagreements. This is part 1 of “Smokescreen,” a four-part Newsline investigation into a culture of secrecy and political meddling at Colorado’s Air Pollution Control Division.įew Coloradans know the Air Pollution Control Division by name, but every time they take a breath of Rocky Mountain air, they’re impacted by the decisions it makes.Ī branch of the state health department with a staff of about 200, the APCD is tasked with overseeing Colorado air-quality policy and, increasingly, with leading many of its efforts to transition to clean energy and battle climate change.
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