Proposition 137, the deceptively-named “Direct Sporting Goods Sales Tax Revenue for Conservation,” would permanently alter state sales tax refunds under Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), as guaranteed by the Colorado Constitution.
The measure would transfer approximately $175 million per year out of the state budget, that currently has a $1.5 billion deficit. It would also drastically expand government agencies and programs for unproven “fuel mitigation” and “forest treatments”—under dubious claims of “conservation”—with little to no oversight by citizens or our elected representatives.
Prop 137 would put millions of dollars into existing government agencies whose claims of “wildfire prevention” or “community protection” are either wholly debunked or seriously challenged by the consensus of peer-reviewed science.
Taxpayers would also be financing wealthy nonprofits—including Prop 137’s controversial main sponsor, The Nature Conservancy, and their decisions on which public land to “treat,” and how thin a “healthy forest” should be. Incredibly, while tax dollars fund the logging work, sales of merchantable wood do not pay the taxpayers back.
Prop 137 would prohibit TABOR state sales tax refunds from sales of motor homes, travel trailers, campers, boats, motorcycles, motor scooters, bicycles, golf and exercise equipment, and the rental of sports equipment and even musical instruments.
$175 million from the state’s General Fund would go to a new “Wildfire and Conservation Revenue” state fund through another new “Conserve and Protect Colorado’s Water, Land, and Forests Fund” fund and then route those tax dollars into several smaller funds making it extremely difficult to follow the money.
One such fund is the “Colorado Wildfire Prevention and Water Fund.”
Two other funds, the “Forest Restoration and Wildfire Risk Mitigation Grant Program Cash Fund” and “Healthy Forests and Vibrant Communities Fund,” would take an additional $36.5 million in taxpayer funding in 2027-28 primarily for “fuels and forest health projects…to reduce risk of wildfire, promote forest health, and encourage the use of woody material for forest products,” to “Implement forest management and fuels reduction projects,” as well as “Support utilization and marketing of wood products,” and to “Provide loans to forest products businesses.”
The consensus of peer-reviewed science reveals it is impossible to “prevent wildfire,” via “fuel reduction.” This U.S. Forest Service funded study found “Under adaptive management, fuel treatments are not designed to prevent or stop fires but to moderate fire behavior when fire inevitably returns.”
To the contrary, Forest Service studies find that forest “fuel reduction” not only can’t “moderate” the weather and wind-driven high intensity fires that threaten communities but actually increase wind penetration and spread of embers and flames to communities: “Reduced canopy bulk density can lead to increased surface wind speed and fuel heating, which allows for increased rates of fire spread in thinned forests.”
Yet “The Wildfire Mitigation Capacity Development Fund” is predicted to receive over $18 million from Prop 137, which finances “planning and implementation of fuel reduction and wildfire mitigation projects at landscape-scale.”
What’s more, under Prop 137, the “Prescribed Fire Claims Cash Fund” will get a one-time revenue of $10 million, a 4,000% increase from the fund’s current $250,000. The very existence of this fund acknowledges the extreme risks to homeowners and communities from prescribed burns, which are a favored practice by some of the agencies.
In 2022, a Forest Service prescribed burn triggered New Mexico’s most destructive wildfire, destroying nearly one thousand structures and over 160 homes. In 2019, Prop 137’s main sponsor, The Nature Conservancy, lost control of a prescribed burn which “took dozens of firefighters and three days to put out.” In 2012, another Forest Service prescribed burn in Jefferson County, Colorado, killed three people and damaged dozens of homes. That fire resulted in a temporary ban on the practice by then Governor John Hickenlooper.
TABOR exists to protect Colorado taxpayers from runaway government spending. Proposition 137 would shred Colorado’s constitution by redirecting $175 million tax dollars yearly to unelected government agencies and unaccountable NGOs. It is bad tax policy for unsubstantiated “science” that may cause faster moving fires and put our firefighters, communities, and natural resources at risk.
Mike Rawluk is a conservationist and taxpayer advocate with Protect Colorado’s Land, Communities, and Tax Dollars. Learn more at NoProp137.com.
