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The Colorado Chamber of Commerce today celebrated the defeat of HB 1330 and HB 1339, two bills on the organization’s “Job Killers” list announced earlier this session. The bills remained on the calendar in the House Appropriations Committee beyond the May 6 deadline to be heard, effectively killing the legislation.
“When it comes to Colorado’s economic climate, the most significant threat to our competitiveness that we hear from business leaders is the state’s overly complex regulatory environment,” said Meghan Dollar, senior vice president of governmental affairs for the Chamber. “Together, these bills would have made the situation even worse, driving companies out Colorado and taking jobs with them. Legislators need to understand that the business community needs regulatory relief, and this will continue to be a key focus of the Chamber’s work in the years to come.”
HB 1330 would have created more red tape for business, adding layers of complex regulations to obtain environmental and construction permits and intentionally imposing costly barriers to industry. HB 1339 would have overhauled the state’s emissions standards and reversed much of the Chamber’s work on rulemaking in the last year.
The Colorado Chamber has aggressively opposed the bills on its job killers list this session, prompting Chamber members to send thousands of messages to state legislators through action alerts against each bill. On HB 1330 and HB 1339 alone, Chamber members made more than 2,000 contacts with lawmakers asking for their opposition.
With the defeat of these two bills, the Colorado Chamber has so far helped to defeat a total of six out of the eight job killers on its agenda, including:
- SB 159: Imposed a complete ban on all new oil and gas development statewide, upending the entire industry and threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs tied to the energy sector.
- SB 165: Revived a previously-failed effort to mandate how Coloradans commute to work, requiring reduced use of personal vehicles. The bill also created a seasonal oil and gas ban.
- SB 166: Created complex and severe enforcement regulations on a broad range of businesses, from manufacturers to hospitals to hotels. This would force businesses to reduce operations, lay off workers, or shut down altogether.
- SB 33: Imposed heavy property tax increases on short term rental owners, which would have devastated small businesses and property owners in mountain resort communities.
View more on the Chamber’s “Job Killers” campaign here.
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The Colorado Chamber of Commerce champions free enterprise, a healthy business environment and economic prosperity for all Coloradans. It is the only business association that works to improve the business climate for all sizes of business from a statewide, multi-industry perspective. What the Colorado Chamber accomplishes is good for all businesses, and that’s good for the state’s economy. It was created in 1965 based on the merger with the Colorado Manufacturers’ Association.