The 3rd Congressional District is Colorado's largest, encompassing more than a third of the state. The district is mostly rural, aside from the larger cities of Grand Junction and Pueblo.
The seat is currently held by Jeff Hurd, a Republican from Grand Junction.
There are two Democrats vying for the seat. They are Alex Kelloff, a businessman from Trinidad who currently lives in Snowmass, and Dwayne Romero, a realtor and former Aspen city councilor, who also lives in Snowmass.
Hurd is facing a primary challenge from Ron Hanks, a former state lawmaker from Cañon City, which is not in the district. Hanks did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this story. However, Hanks ran for U.S. Senate in 2022, and did make some remarks about climate change during a candidate forum.
“I don’t want to sit here and pretend that climate change is a real issue,” he said. It’s called weather. They’ve used it as a lever to control policy and to control conversation, and we have got to push back.”
Hanks went on to say that climate change was being pushed by China as a way to undermine the United States.
“Remember how I talked about getting manufacturing back in the United States?” he said. “Well, just like the green movement in Europe during the nuclear era of Reagan, they have got us to shut down our power plants, we’re shutting down coal plants early, so that we cannot manufacture in this country. And that is a serious effort of China to emasculate us, if you’ll permit the term.”
Energy development & grid resilience
Prior to his time in Congress, Hurd had a law practice that worked primarily with rural electric co-operatives. He said he believes that rather than an “all-of-the-above” energy approach, Colorado needs a “best-of-the-above” approach, especially in CD3, which he says is “perfectly positioned” to lead on energy reliability and affordability issues.
“I think communities should not be forced into a false choice between economic opportunity and conservation,” he said. “I think we can balance those, with the right regulatory mix, with the right policy approach. We have incredible natural resources here in this district that would allow us to be at the forefront of reliable energy and affordable energy in the coming decades. And that includes nuclear, and it also includes geothermal.”
Despite his stated support for renewables, Hurd voted last summer for the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the Republican- and Trump-backed spending package. The legislation phased out many of the clean energy tax incentives created under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Hurd said a big focus for energy was permitting reform, or allowing energy projects to be built more quickly and efficiently. He supported the SPEED Act, which would limit which projects would fall under the environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act.
“Sometimes it feels like we don't build anything in America anymore, or it takes too long to build things, and I believe in a rational, predictable regulatory structure,” he said. “But we can't have a series of regulations that keep us from actually building things, whether it's energy resources, legacy generation, renewable resources, advanced nuclear, geothermal. We need to reform the permitting process that's basically put a stranglehold on the development that we need to make.”
Permitting reform is a long-time goal for Congress, with lawmakers from both parties arguing that energy projects should move through the approval process more quickly. But recently, Democrats in Congress have said the Trump administration’s favoritism towards fossil fuels and its deliberate sidelining of wind and solar make it difficult to find bipartisan compromise on permitting reform. Hurd did not address those challenges, but said he was willing to work across the aisle whenever it made sense to do so.
Kelloff also has experience with building infrastructure through his career in telecommunications. He said permitting reform shouldn’t come at the expense of environmental protections.
“I think we can streamline the process that way and create more certainty and transparency in the process,” he said. “I think where there's duplicative decisions around permits, environmental protections, I think we should look to streamline the process. We need to be laser focused on protecting the things we want to as a community, but there shouldn't be duplicative effort that drives up time, costs, and the like.”
Kelloff also emphasized that developing renewable energy needed to be a federal priority.
“We need a long-term, just transition to a clean energy future, and I think that will require all forms of energy, including geothermal,” he said. “We need to look at nuclear for baseload power as well. I think we can do it safely. The Navy has done it on nuclear submarines for generations, literally without any accidents there.”
Romero agreed with Kelloff’s emphasis on a just transition, saying that he didn’t want to leave Colorado’s historic oil and gas producing areas like Garfield and Mesa counties behind.
“We have to be very, very pragmatic in how we move forward with the advancement and the down at the consumer level consumption of all of these renewable energies that are so important in the face of a changing climate,” he said. “We just can't allow anyone to be left behind. So I think there's a practical timing approach to that transition.”
Romero was a little more hesitant on the adoption of nuclear energy, saying that it would need to be discussed locally before there was any uptake.
“My hunch, in the long term, (is that) it will be one of the attributes of a multi-pronged clean energy economy at the national level,” he said. “Nuclear may end up finding its way here and there, but we need to be careful with that as well in terms of which communities are interested to explore that and which are not.”
He also said that it was important for Colorado to stand strong in its climate goals, even as it faces retribution from the Trump administration.
“I think we have the duty and the obligation to fight for the policies and fight for the structures that we want to continue in our state, even in the face of federal pressures,” he said. “I sure would not want to be the legislator that continues to roll over and just completely allows either executive orders or other mandates from this administration to continue.”
Kelloff agreed on the Trump administration’s treatment of Colorado.
“It is absolutely absurd, shameful that we in Colorado have not received any FEMA money,” he said. “You look at the Lee Fire last year, almost a year ago, one of the worst fires in state history. We've still received no FEMA money.”
Drought & water infrastructure
Colorado had its worst snowpack on record this past winter, and all of the state is currently in some level of drought conditions.
“We are in a drying situation here in the Colorado River Basin, and we need to bring every tool we can to bear, to address this serious situation in Colorado, in the Upper Basin and in the Lower Basin as well,” said Hurd.
Hurd has been focused on getting funds for the Western Slope’s purchase of the Shoshone water rights.
These are some of the oldest water rights on the main stem of the Colorado River in the state of Colorado, and are tied to a hydroelectric power plant in Glenwood Canyon, which is operated by Xcel Energy. The Colorado River District is in the process of buying the rights for $99 million. The conservation district wants to ensure the water continues flowing from upstream users even if the power plant is no longer running.
The Biden administration committed $40 million towards the effort from the Inflation Reduction Act—money that was frozen when Trump took office.
“I mentioned this issue specifically to President Trump, actually spelled out Shoshone for him when he and I spoke,” Hurd said of his efforts. “Telling him this is my top priority for Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, working with the Secretary of the Interior directly, working with the Bureau of Reclamation, talking about this.”
Romero said that the Shoshone purchase was a great example of some of the local work that can be done on water solutions, and said he’d work to see it over the finish line.
“I love it,” he said. “And I think that's the type of, you know, accords, agreements, work, progress solutions that I think a legislator at the at the federal level, if not be the tip of the spear, should sure be willing to help support, shepherd, and carry as as much as he can… to get to the solution.”
Kelloff agreed.
“I think it's finding those projects and opportunities where we can push these things forward and that's part of what I would do (as a lawmaker),” he said. “Because that's more of a local issue than a federal issue, but obviously money came from the federal government. So working with local officials like Andy (Mueller, director of the Colorado River District) and his team and other state lawmakers to push forward projects like that, that help with our water situation here.”
Kelloff said that water issues were connected to infrastructure, and emphasized his business background in being able to develop programs that could aid in conservation.
“So when we talk about water, that's things like reservoirs and dams and canals,” he said. “We need to get back to investing in these things where it makes sense, probably led by (the Bureau of) Reclamation. I think when we make those investments, we can protect some of that water that we're losing because we haven't kept up and maintained our critical infrastructure.”
Kelloff also said that he’d like to see programs that incentivize water providers and irrigation districts in Colorado to make improvements to their water infrastructure, like tax breaks or refunds.
Romero emphasized that members of Congress should look for water savings solutions in their own local communities, pointing to the work the Snowmass Water and Sanitation District has done on conservation (Romero serves on the District’s board).
“The decision making and the kind of the good leadership and active management and the conservation policies and procedures down at a local level, literally a town of 2,500 people, those same attitudes, and those same policies and procedures are super transferrable up and across, frankly, across the damn union,” he said.
Romero and Kelloff agreed they’d work to see federal funding restored for the Arkansas Valley Conduit, which would pipe water from Pueblo to Las Animas.
Hurd has worked on some water legislation in Congress, including a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat who represents Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District. It’s called the Snow Water Supply Forecasting Reauthorization Act. He’d also like to do more work on invasive species in the Colorado River during a second term, like tamarisk trees.
“These are invasive species that are sucking up huge amounts of water on a daily basis. Addressing those, getting rid of them in a targeted smart way is one of the best water storage projects that we could have, so to speak,” he said.
Protecting Colorado’s public lands
In 2025, as part of the reconciliation process for the federal budget, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) put forth a proposal that would have required the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to sell between two and three million acres of their lands for affordable housing purposes. After bipartisan backlash, the proposal did not make it into the final version of what Donald Trump referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Hurd was one of the Republicans, along with Montana’s Ryan Zinke, who opposed the proposal and worked to get it removed from the package.
“I do believe in targeted and reasonable sales of public lands, but they need to be locally driven,” Hurd said. “They need to be locally supported, and they need to make sense, given the circumstances and a massive public land sale, like the one that was proposed, did not meet any of those requirements.”
Hurd was also the only Republican on the House Natural Resources Committee to vote against the sale of public lands in Utah and Nevada, a proposal introduced before Lee’s larger sell-off during reconciliation.
“I'm willing to take tough votes,” he said. “I'm willing to be the only vote against a public land sale, and I will continue to be a voice for protecting our public lands and for protecting responsible public use and access of those lands.”
But Kelloff says Hurd’s full-throated defense of public lands is disingenuous, when he’s sponsoring legislation that puts their protection at risk. He pointed to Hurd’s Productive Public Lands Act, which would repeal the resource management plan for BLM field offices in Western Colorado, and open even more acreage to oil and gas leasing.
“It was the first piece of legislation he proposed when he got to office,” Kelloff said. “And it was almost word for word taken out of Project 2025 about how we would increase the sale and leasing of our public lands. So that formed the basis of what was to be in the One Big Ugly Bill.”
Hurd has said he believes in balancing multiple uses on public lands with conservation. He’s referring to the BLM’s mission of multiple use, which means managing land for things like grazing, extraction, and recreation all under one agency’s roof. But Kelloff said Hurd’s legislation doesn’t promote that balance.
“I would say the taxpayers are subsidizing big oil and gas, and the extractive industry's ability to benefit from tying up those public lands at the taxpayer expense, of which we don't really get anything back for that,” Kelloff said.
Romero was also starkly opposed to the Trump administration’s attempts to privatize and further lease public lands for fossil fuels interests.
“Hard stop: I would not support any particular additional sale,” he said of future public lands selloffs. “And then you think about the secondary steps of, okay, would you expand existing oil and gas leases? No. Would you be willing to take on new oil and gas leases? You know, because we have this crazy ability now to capture natural gas and liquefy it. And so we've got this abundance, abundance, and my answer is no.”
Kelloff was also concerned about staffing levels at land management agencies. He recounted driving over Molas Pass in San Juan County and stopping at a rest area, noticing that bathrooms hadn’t been maintained and trash had not been thrown out. He’d like to see greater investment in public lands agencies to ensure they can adequately maintain recreation sites and other public infrastructure.
“I view these as critical investments,” he said. “They're investments we make to look after our public land that have a return on the investment. I.e., the outdoor rec industry tourism that drives that as well. So as a legislator in Congress, I would advocate and fight for these critical investments that have shown to really benefit all of us.”
Romero shared Kelloff’s concerns about staffing at land management agencies, saying that the Forest Service and BLM act as stewards for beloved landscapes in Colorado.
“We need to be willing to invest in their preservation, in their protection and their access,” he said. “It's not just recreational, right? These Forest Service and BLM professionals are also an extended agent of our fire protection, kind of first eyes. And… being able to identify where fuel needs to be removed or consumed in order to prevent future forest fires that may actually threaten our communities.”
Romero said that the Trump administration’s approach to slashing budgets and staff was short-sighted.
“We need to start thinking about why we do what we do when we're in public service,” he said. “It's no longer about you or your reputation or your pocketbook or your ego. It should be done solely and specifically for the greater good, which is everyone else. It's everyone else, and it is everyone else in the legacy and the generations ahead of us, right?”
Hurd said that adequately staffing public lands agencies was a “top priority” for him, but he thinks that some of the cuts have been “overstated.”
“I think if you talk to public lands managers here in Western and Southern Colorado, they will tell you that there is some room for more efficiency,” he said. “A lot of that's going to be some of the bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. and some of the mid-level bureaucrats that are within these agencies. Cutting jobs and positions on the ground is not the right answer.”
Copyright 2026 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
