The Colorado House of Representatives recently received the unwelcome news that the state faces a $1.5 billion shortfall as they craft the state’s budget for fiscal year 2026-27. This troubling development comes on top of last year’s $750 million deficit.
The shortfalls are odd because overall government spending has increased dramatically: since 2019 (the year Democrats took over the House, Senate, and governor’s office), Colorado’s population has increased by 4.4%, while at the same time, the state’s annual budget has increased by 43.6% (roughly 10 times the rate of population growth). Think about that.
Fiscal malpractice
In the midst of these fiscal straits, you’d think legislators would want to spend money carefully. But you’d be wrong, as so amply illustrated in a bill that has gone through the Senate and is making its way through the House.
Senate Bill 26-021, Clean Fleet Enterprise Replace Aging Diesel Trucks uses money collected from a fee created by a transportation bill passed in 2021 to, among other things, fund the replacement of pre-2009 diesel heavy duty trucks. The bill also requires the destruction of the replaced trucks (no matter their working condition).
The measure builds off provisions found in Senate Bill 21-260, which was passed following two related elections. In November 2018 Colorado voters said ‘no’ to transportation proposals that would have raised taxes or incurred long term debt (Props 109 & 110). Two years later (November 2020) Colorado voters cut income taxes (via Prop 116) and demanded that government ‘enterprises’ (government run businesses) costing more than $100 million over five years be referred to the ballot (Prop 117).
Interestingly, it was the success of Prop 117 that led sponsors of SB-260 to divide the anticipated “fee” revenue from the bill into several enterprises; it was a simple accounting trick (or perhaps, a dirty trick) to avoid having to ask the voters to approve the new fees.
But majority Democrats moved full steam ahead anyway and passed the bill, one of the more expensive pieces of legislation in Colorado history. It forces taxpayers to hand over $5.4 billion ($3.8 billion in new fees, pegged to increase with inflation) to fund enterprises that will together collect over $300 million per year over their first 10 years of operation and much, much more after that (according to the non-partisan Legislative Council).
That’s $300 million taken out of the pockets of taxpayers and handed to government bureaucrats.
Subsidizing private companies
Senate Bill 260 created the “Clean Fleet Enterprise” that is featured in this year’s Senate Bill 021. In the past couple of years, the Clean Fleet Enterprise has allocated millions of dollars to fund the purchase of ‘clean vehicles’ by cities, municipalities, and public companies. To give you a taste of what’s been happening, the Bristlecone Group, an Aurora-based specialized delivery company[8], received $636,000 in taxpayer dollars to purchase 4 new trucks. United Parcel Service (UPS) got $1.59 million to purchase 10 electric delivery vans. Xcel Energy received $2.775 million to buy 15 bucket trucks. Sysco, a global food distribution company is earmarked to receive over $5 million for regional delivery trucks.
But these aren’t just any trucks. In the first instance, they are electric-powered trucks. Moreover, they tick the box as being related to “environmental justice” in the dashboard published by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. As to the price of these trucks, they cost about $160,000 each. The price of the ones using combustion engines? About $94,000.
Are we really supposed to believe that these private companies don’t have the money to buy their own trucks? To cite but one example, UPS (United Parcel Service) reported a profit of $2.6 billion in the final quarter of 2025 alone (and $7.9 billion for the whole year). Why should Colorado taxpayers be buying trucks for them? UPS’s profits would be enough to fund the state’s entire portion of Medicaid and Higher Education spending for a whole year – and we’re subsidizing them? That’s outrageous.
To what end?
On top of that, the reduction in greenhouse gases that lies behind this bill, particularly carbon dioxide, is microscopic. That’s because nature alone disgorges 769 gigatons of CO2 each year all on its own.[12] Mankind adds about 40 gigatons, while the state of Colorado in total releases 0.08 gigatons per year according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. How much CO2 is emitted from the combustion engine trucks being replaced by Senate Bill 26-021? The ten Class 6 delivery vans used by UPS generate about 350,000 kilograms of CO2 per year – sounds like a lot, right? That figure translates into 4 one-hundred millionths of a gigaton, statistically indistinguishable from zero unless you use seven places after the decimal point. But it does allow the government to virtue-signal its commitment to the environment. What a waste.
Senate Bill 26-021 is not a good bill; Senate Bill 21-260 was even worse. Together they illustrate two things: the absolute uselessness of this kind of legislation to make a difference in the climate while, at the same time, spending millions of taxpayer dollars on private companies that don’t need our help.
A final note: having read all this, is it any wonder the state is $1.5 billion under water when it comes to next year’s budget? Who is steering this ship?
Scott Bottoms represents House District 15 in the Colorado legislature.
