Local governments in the Roaring Fork Valley have long grappled with environmental issues, including work to lower greenhouse gas emissions, protect wilderness areas from overuse, keep water in the rivers and more. For the first time in many local elected officials’ tenure, these priorities are under threat from the national administration. Elizabeth Stewart-Severy asked local officials how they are working to influence national policy.
On Nov. 9, 2016, the day after the election, Pitkin County Commissioner Rachel Richards started thinking about federal policy.
“Everything’s on the table now,” she said. “Everything you ever thought was settled law or settled policy is on the table.”
Aspen Mayor Steve Skadron takes a similar view on the importance of being in the trenches locally.
“We have to do everything we can at a local level to ensure that all the work we’ve already done doesn’t go for naught,” he said.
Across the Roaring Fork Valley local governments are making sure they have a voice in the national conversation. It takes many forms, everything from writing attention-grabbing editorials to paying lobbyists in Washington D.C.
Garfield County has spent $30,000 per year for the last three years to contract a lobbyist, Robert Weidner in Washington D.C, to work on key issues the commissioners identify.
“We lobbied not to list the sage grouse as endangered,” commissioner John Martin said. “We also lobbied not to do the restrictive land use control that the BLM was proposing.”
Often lobbying efforts end in a mixed bag, or some sort of compromise. In this case, it was a win for the Garfield County commissioners that sage grouse are not listed as endangered, but Martin said the restrictions on development on public lands near the birds’ habitat are too strict.
Still, Martin said lobbying is an effective tool.
“It has been worth every penny,” he said. “It has been disappointing sometimes, but we’re a stubborn lot. We don’t give up, we continue down the path.”
Officials in Pitkin County and the City of Aspen say they take a different approach, one that starts closer to home.
Ashley Perl is the climate action expert with the City of Aspen. She said her department does two things.
“One, we do local action, so we put in programs on the ground. And two, we’re policy advocates. So we’ll push for bigger action at a bigger scale,” she said.
And that often means joining statewide organizations. Both Aspen and Pitkin County spend thousands of dollars each year on memberships in groups like the Mountain Pact. This is an association of ski towns across the West that keeps an eye on legislation.
Staff and elected officials choose what they see as the most pressing issues, like recent congressional efforts to repeal regulations on methane emissions. Pitkin County and Aspen both broke out pen and paper to voice their opposition.
“Our shorter winters and reduced snowpack are the result of global greenhouse emissions,” Perl explained. “So we have to fight the fight for reduced global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Climate action is top priority for the City of Aspen. Mayor Steve Skadron is part of an international coalition called the Compact of Mayors. Members of that group pledge to reduce emissions in their communities, and Skadron recently recreated that compact on a smaller scale in Colorado.
“And then we would perhaps create this grassroots movement that would then influence policy at state and national levels,” he said.
Earlier this month, Aspen hosted representatives from more than 40 Colorado communities; 27 pledged to ask their local communities to join Skadron’s program, including all Roaring Fork Valley cities and Pitkin and Eagle counties. Garfield County did not attend.
According to Pitkin County Commissioner Rachel Richards, forming associations of like-minded communities is important. Pitkin County recently worked to create a new group of counties when the statewide organization Colorado Counties Incorporated did not reflect local interests.
“We are very outnumbered,” Richards said. “That group tends to really support things like the transfer of public lands to the states, quote, reforming the Endangered Species Act, or even getting rid of the Antiquities Act, which is how monuments are nominated and designated by the president.”
Richards helped to start a new association called Counties and Commissioners Acting Together (C-CAT). This group represents many progressive and mountain governments, and it’s beginning to gain influence. Richards said it’s not just up to elected officials to represent community values.
“Citizen group activism is just as important as government activities,” Richards said. “It’s about unified fronts and unified activities.”
And maintaining a voice in a changing national conversation.
