Senate Transportation & Energy [May 11, 2026 - Upon Adjournment]

Okay. Good afternoon. After some scheduling discussion, G&E will now come to order. Ms. Forbes, can you please call the roll?

Excused.

Excused.

Exum. Good afternoon.

Present.

Here.

Present.

Here.

Here.

Present. And let the record reflect that Senator Catlin has joined us. All right. We have four bills to hear today, and we're going to kick off with House Bill 1286, Automated Driving System Commercial Vehicles. I see the sponsors are here. Thank you for joining us. Please begin when you're ready.

Thank you, Senator Kloger. Senator Liston. Very good. I just got to figure out this microphone. I never, I'm always on the other. Testing, right. Okay, very good. Just do it this way. Very good, Madam Chair and committee members. Yes, this is my first time to be here in the Transportation Committee for quite some time. It's good to see you all. As my good colleague, Senator Kolker, said, this bill has been amended in the House. Let me go over some of the changes of the key provisions. There was L001 which moved the penalty structure directly into the new statute to make it self-contained and it adds a five-year sunset so the legislature can revisit the law in 2031. L4 made two changes to the physical presence requirement. It specifies that the driver must be in the cab specifically, not just anywhere in the vehicle. and it consolidates the monitoring and intervention duties into a single prepared, quote, prepared to intervene standard rather than listing them as separate obligations. L-005 explicitly narrowed the bill so that it only applies to the heaviest trucks, those over 26,001 pounds, clarifying that medium duty vehicles like delivery vans and Waymos were exempt from this requirement. Another amendment required that the CDL driver, CDL holder in the vehicle have the right kind of CDL for that specific truck, including any required endorsements. So, for example, a bus driver would not haul hazmat materials. Another amendment strikes the referendum clause and adds a safety clause And then there was a J amendment in the appropriations that revised the fiscal note since the bill would be implemented via safety clause And the bill, once again, in its current form ensures Colorado remains a leader, not only in innovation but in safety and responsibility. And we would encourage a yes vote. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Senator Liston, for giving us all those highlights. So the amendment there about the bus drivers not doing the hazmat transportation, so then we would not be talking about bus drivers who are taking preschoolers.

Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just notating this because we spent the weekend with my four-year-old granddaughter. there's a lot of facilities and odors that come when she's in the room sometimes. I'm just concerned about the bus drivers with those preschoolers.

Senator Ball. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for bringing this bill. So I remember when this bill came through last year, and at the time I had a conversation with the late Senator Winter because I noticed she had voted, I believe, against the bill in committee, but then ended up supporting it on the floor. And I supported this bill on the floor last year, too. and it got me thinking about this issue because I understand the technology isn't currently there with automated vehicles and it's safer right now to have a person in the vehicle especially on mountain roads in Colorado with big commercial trucks but you know Denver where I represent they're rolling out Waymo soon and you know one of the things that people talk about that I think is legitimate is just how much safer Waymo appears to be based on what we know. And, you know, we sometimes have bills in this committee about people who've been hit by drivers and the losses that families have. And there's, I think, about 30,000 people in the United States who get, you know, killed by an automobile every year. So I'm wondering why, yeah, at some point I would expect the technology to be there where, like most of our vehicles might be automated. So I guess I'm curious why not sort of allow for that, put a sunset on this, or some ability to come back and reevaluate once the technology is in a slightly better place.

Senator Ball.

Committee, any further questions for our bill's sponsors today? All right. Seeing none, thank you, gentlemen. Let's begin the witness testimony. All right. Let's have Megan McKillop and Emily Hadaway and Gabe Easton. Welcome. Who would like to begin? Okay. Ms. Hadaway, you'll have two minutes. Please introduce yourself and begin when you're ready.

Look at you. Two seconds to spare. Thank you, Ms. Hathaway. Would you like to begin? Is it Sergeant? Captain. Captain. I apologize. Captain. Welcome.

Thank you very much, Captain. Ms. McKillop. Welcome.

Thank you, Ms. McKillop. Senator Pelton, ready to go.

Captain Easton.

No problem. Thank you for the question, Senator. I'm not aware of other provisions in statute that have a similar requirement. That doesn't mean that there's not, but just in the transportation space, I'm not aware of any at this time. Thank you.

Yes, thank you so much. My name is Tammy Munoz. I am here on behalf of Teamsters Local 455 where we represent over 12,000 members in the state of Colorado. And the fear of running out of time, I did want to address one of the comments that were made on prior testimony while we were working with the governor's office in CDOT in negotiations with this bill. We rejected the offer because it had a one-year sunset. That was a stipulation for the governor's office, and we were thinking, well, one-year sunset does not give us, you know, anytime we'll be here again next year with the same with the same bill so I just want to start with saying thank you for for letting me testify and HB 1286 is not an either or bill it's an and bill one that addresses both public safety risk of fully autonomous semis operating on Colorado highways and the economic consequences of displaced train certified drivers You will hear testimony today regarding the safety concerns of driverless 80 pound vehicles on the road, so I want to focus on the economic impact on worker families in the communities that rely on the middle class in trucking jobs. Across the country, autonomous semis are no longer experimental. They are already running on major freight corridors like Dallas to Houston, companies such as Aurora Innovation have locked significant autonomous mileage and are rapidly scaling. Mind you, they're still a driver in these trucks. Industry production show hundreds of driverless trucks expect to be on the road and potentially thousands by 2027. While the technology races forward, working families are left behind. Long-haul trucking remains one of the last blue-collar professions that provides a stable middle-class living without requiring a college degree. Research and reporting shows that automation threatens to eliminate many of these jobs. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Chair, Committee members. Dennis Doherty, Colorado AFL-CAO. We're in strong support. I'm going to be reading the testimony of Ron Baird. I started driving semi-trucks in 1984. I have driven approximately 4 million miles, which is about 8.3 trips to the moon and back. If anyone in this room has driven a newer car with interactive cruise control, you would probably experience some very scary situations when the car did some unexpected things, like heartbreaking or the loss of lane control. So if you weren't in the car to keep it from crashing, it could be catastrophic for anyone around the car. Now compare the weight of the average SUV, which is approximately 2.4 tons, to a fully loaded semi-truck, which is 40 tons or 80,000 pounds. The loss of control could be catastrophic, especially if it were to involve other vehicles. This is one reason fully autonomous semi-trucks are the most dangerous thing we can put on our roads. I have blown steering tires while driving a truck. It took all my experience to maintain control and get safely out to traffic to the side of the road. What will an autonomous truck do in this situation? It uses painted lines to stay in its lanes. Will it stop in traffic and possibly get rear-ended if it won't cross the lines into the breakdown lane on the right side of the road? Even if it can do this, federal motor carrier laws require that three reflective triangles must be in the cab of the truck at all times and placed at the rear of the truck when on the side of the roadway. One placed approximately 200 feet behind the truck. One at 100 and one at 10 feet. So how can a truck without a human accomplish this simple task? I'm asking you to support this bill to keep us all safe while driving on our roadways. I have four sons and 13 grandchildren, and I would like to make sure that a computer-driven robot does not kill them. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. My name is Nate Bernstein. I'm with Climate Jobs Colorado. I am reading a statement on behalf of Nate McCarty. I have been a professional truck driver for 33 years. I have 3.5 million accident-free miles, which would be 140 times around the world. I have also served as an ambassador for the trucking industry in my company for the last 16 years. I can imagine that everyone in this room passed a truck on the way here today, probably quite a few given that we are the second largest industry in the country behind agriculture with 3.6 million drivers. One in seven jobs in this country is a professional truck driver, someone that supports the industry. If you take a driver from behind the wheel, you are taking away a provider for a family. As many are moms and dads husbands wives grandparents and veterans like myself Think about the lost revenue for truck stops restaurants hotels in the state of Colorado alone We make thousands of decisions every day as drivers Some are common sense decisions for safety that a computer sensor would never make. Look how quickly our weather conditions can change in Colorado, not only in the mountains, but all around the state. I've had to put chains on I-25, I-70 east of Lyman when vehicles were spun out on the hill of Genoa. There have been times where the chain law is not in effect yet, and I have had to make a decision to put them on when passenger vehicles with inadequate tires are impeding the way. Auto chains only work where you are moving. It's very difficult to get moving from a stop even when you are fully chained up. How does an autonomous truck not become a hazard self or get off the road in these situations? who is going to install tire chains when the truck can't get to a chain-up area. We already have many of the same safety technologies in our trucks that these autonomous trucks will be using. Roll stability systems, side collision avoidance systems, lane departure systems, camera monitoring systems, and more. I can tell you that these systems do not do well in bad weather. Radars and cameras get covered up in snow, fog, and freezing conditions. I have more to say but I urge you to please vote in favor of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Just a good bill. I know we ran this last year. I encourage an aye vote today. to keep this moving forward. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members. Yes, I was on this bill last year, too, and I think it makes good sense, you know, for safety especially and to have good jobs for the people who drive these massive vehicles. So with that, I would urge an aye vote. Thank you very much.

Senator Linstead?

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move House Bill 1286 to the Committee on Appropriations with a favorable recommendation. That is a proper motion. Thank you.

Senator Baisley?

Atlin?

Exum?

Linstead?

Mallika?

Pelton?

Sullivan. Yes. Mr. Vice Chair.

Congratulations. That bill passes 5 to 3. You're on your way to approves. Good times. Have a good afternoon. Thank you. Okay. We're going to situate ourselves here and begin the next bill in just a moment. Blessed Mr Chair Thank you All right, we have our sponsors here for House Bill 1112. Who would like to start off? Senator Cutter. 1424, my bad goodness gracious we have our sponsors here for 1424 I can speak to 1112 if you'd like Senator Cutter

Senator Wallace. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and members, for having us and for your consideration today. Coloradans increasingly rely on a range of transportation modes, including transportation network companies, as covered in this bill, to travel. TNCs are used by a broad range of individuals, including vulnerable populations, such as individuals with disabilities, and individuals seeking alternative transportation after consuming alcohol. Reports from drivers and riders have identified safety concerns, including incidents involving fraud, sexual assault, and other harms. That's why this legislation exists. Put simply, it is meant to strengthen safety and accountability for TNCs operating in Colorado. It takes meaningful, common-sense steps to better protect riders and drivers alike by requiring criminal background checks every six months instead of every five years, thus helping ensure that dangerous conduct does not go undetected for years at a time. It also makes clear that individuals convicted of violent crimes are not eligible to serve as drivers on these platforms. The bill closes critical safety gaps by preventing drivers disqualified by one company from simply moving to another platform, and it requires companies to promptly investigate serious complaints. It also establishes stronger accountability by requiring TNCs to comply with subpoenas and search warrants related to complaints within 72 hours. Importantly, the bill directs the PUC to establish safety training standards and requires every TNC to provide that training to both drivers and riders alike. And finally, the legislation requires that any food or drink offered during rides be factory sealed except in emergencies. Taken together, these measures create stronger oversight, clearer safety standards, and greater transparency for an industry that millions of Coloradans rely on every year. Thank you again for your consideration and I look forward to the conversation.

I'm sorry. Not something I do regularly, so I apologize. Very good.

Chair and members of the committee. My name is Rita Smith, and I have been working in the field of prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault for over 45 years. I began my career in 1981 as a crisis line advocate in the Colorado Denver metro area, and eventually rose to the position of leader of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence for over 20 years. I am committed to providing every avenue available for victim safety, and I think it's important that we take the time and energy to really do good legislation and good policy. And it's complex. These issues are very complex, and they take time. They take time to get it right. I continue my work in this space as a private consultant, and two of the contracts I have are with Uber and the National Football League. So I am intent on trying to help companies that want to make change do it right, do it well, and have survivor safety at the primary focus of their work. Since 2018, I believe that Uber has made commitments to improving their safety. They had, as any company, had work to do to make that different and change it in a way that would be helpful. They have worked as leaders trying to build safety technology into transportation, and I think that working with them and helping them comply is the way that will be best for everyone and will ensure that the safety is ongoing and universal. My concern is that it's possible that having carve outs so that certain companies don't have to comply completely in this way isn't helpful. And universal implementation should be the way we should be thinking about this. So I think that amending the bill to take in these kind of considerations and to make sure that what we're really doing is helpful for all victims is the way that we should go. And thank you so much for your time and energy and for looking at victim safety as your primary goal. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Senator Wallace. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do have two amendments, sir. Do you want to move that one?

Let's give the staff a second to distribute it.

Should I? Let's give her just a second to distribute them.

Yeah, true. All right, everyone should have a copy of L24 and L25. L24 was properly moved. Who would like to describe L24? Senator Wallace.

All right. the committee any questions on L24? Is there any objection to L24? All right, I am seeing no objection to L24. L24 is adopted. L25, Senator Cutter. I move House, amendment L25 to House Bill 1424. All right, that is a proper motion. Senator Wallace, would you like to Describe L25.

Members of the committee, do we have any questions on L25? All right, I am seeing no questions on L25. Is there objection to L25? I am seeing no objection to L25. L25 is adopted. Any additional amendment sponsors? None. Members of the committee, do you have any amendments? Seeing none, the amendments phase is closed. Wrap up.

Senator Cutter.

Thank you, sponsors. Senator Cutter, a proper motion would be to the Committee of the Whole.

Thank you. Members of the committee, do we have any closing remarks? Senator Pelton.

Additional closing remarks? All right, I will just say, oh, did I miss someone? No? Okay. All right. I'll just say thank you for bringing this. I know this is a deeply personal and important bill to many folks, not only in the legislature but across the state. And I think this will make people's lives safer and give people better faith in our transportation system. So I'll be proud of yesterday, and I thank you again for bringing it. Please call the roll.

Respectful, no.

No.

Aye.

Yes.

No.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Hey, everybody, thank you. I know it's been, what, a couple months since we heard this bill in committee. appreciate that we frankly had the opportunity to have members of the public come and speak on this bill. Obviously, we wouldn't want to do that on the last day because, well, the last three days, we are not quite on the last day. Don't let me say that. But I do want to just mention what we have been working on and that you see in the strike below in front of you that we have tried to share as best we could. And I had this somewhere. Yeah, so what we have really been trying to do with this bill is trying to develop some first-in-the-nation way to proceed with the data centers. Data centers are in a weird place. So as far as the strike below that you have, what we really wanted to ensure was that we had accountability and transparency, that data centers were required to pay their own way, that we had support of public benefit programs, that there were annual reporting on industry-wide impacts, including water usage and electricity usage. You know, data centers are a new thing, and we really, people are still trying to find their way. Also, in terms of energy, the Strike Below has self-powered data centers. I mean, it has different levels for things like self-powered data centers. It has different levels for utilities without strong clean protection plans. It has different levels for utilities on track with their verified clean energy plans. and also for utilities regulated by the PUC. We tried to put in a variety of levels so that it wasn't a one-size-fits-all approach. We tried to put in community protections to make sure that there was public engagement before permitting happens, that cumulative impacts analysis and community benefit agreements were part of what were in the mix for communities before data centers break ground. We wanted to have limits on backup generators because those backup diesel generators are things that really cause tons of pollution in communities We tried to get very strong labor standards in here We actually took language out of the other data center bill that was going through this year and put it into ours. We really thought we were threading the needle. Water and siding, we were trying to make sure that we had reporting on water, water use, water efficiency, wastewater management, wildlife habitat protection. And then I think the most controversial piece of this bill, frankly, was the incentive piece because there were people all over the board on that. So we listened to everybody and what we came up with for the strike below was a limited competitive tax incentive so that if data centers are developed in Colorado, they are developed in a way that will be the most beneficial to Coloradans. But with that, I've heard from a lot of you that a big strike below offered today, you know, isn't where people are. So with that, I'm not going to ask for the strike below to be moved, but ask that we, unless you have other amendments, close the amendment phase and move forward.

Okay, so I want to thank every single stakeholder that came to the table on this bill. We had consumer groups, environmental justice organizations, local governments, utilities, labor, community groups, and industry. We took every meeting that was requested of us over the past year, and we are grateful for that engagement. I pulled this bill title on May 12th of last year. I told everybody at the end of session last year that I was planning to run this bill. We have spent a full year working to craft something that works for Colorado's reality, drawing lessons from other states, responding to feedback, and trying to build something genuinely groundbreaking. Recent polling found that 91%, 91% of Coloradans support common sense data center regulation. That's a remarkable number. The people who commissioned the poll thought that they got the wrong numbers when they heard about this poll because, like, nothing gets 91%. That's an amazing number. And I don't think it's a stretch to say that 91% of Coloradans also don't want to write a blank check to some of the richest companies in the world, companies that have reported record profits in recent quarters. We've heard from many stakeholders who didn't want an incentive at all, who would have preferred a moratorium or even a ban on data centers in Colorado. We've heard from others, including labor, who said an incentive was important. We took both seriously. We worked diligently to design a competitive, limited incentive with real guardrails, one that would bring the best actors to Colorado without putting Colorado taxpayers on the hook. That is genuinely hard to do. I have to go back to my district and explain a budget where we made heartbreaking cuts to programs people depended on and having huge incentives being offered at the same time is not a place that I think any of us wants to be. But we're not going to go back to square one. That would be an unconstrained tax incentive is not a model that Coloradans can support or afford That window has closed Red states and blue states across the country are actively working to roll back their tax incentives States that offered incentives without guardrails have seen their incentives balloon into the billions. We will bring this bill back next session, but industry needs to understand the moment Colorado is willing to work with data centers to accommodate them. and yes, even to offer them an incentive. But these companies need to come to the table, understanding the harms their operations can cause to communities and to our grid and be accountable for that. Colorado communities are deeply worried about what this unrestrained development means for their water, their air quality, their electricity bills, their farmland, and their neighborhoods. We expect companies that come to Colorado to show up thoughtfully with respect for the communities that they'll operate in. We will be back, but in the meantime, I respectfully request that you postpone indefinitely SB 26102.

Thank you, Senator Kipp, for bringing this bill. I know we've had several conversations, and I've had several conversations with the lobbyists. I do appreciate that. This has been a huge argument just in my district, just in the county that I live in. Six public meetings all kept getting laid over the data center rules and regs because they couldn't agree on what should happen to make sure that we are protecting our farmlands, that we are protecting our water. I do appreciate you guys looking at those as well. And I felt like that here towards the end we were getting very close. I really do. I will tell you that I'm pretty frustrated, especially with labor, with all the information that we heard, because they didn't like this data center bill. But they want to be part of data centers, but they were fighting so against the AI stuff. but data centers was a different thing. It was like the trees in the forest voting for an axe because it had a wooden handle. That's kind of the position I saw with that. So I appreciate everything that you did and all the work you put into this. I think everybody's just not there yet, but I think you're close. So definitely have another year to work on it would be good, especially when it comes to local governments, because I kept getting text messages this morning from county commissioners saying it's still not there yet, it's still not there yet. So I appreciate you bringing this bill, and thank you for all your hard work for the year, and I appreciate everybody that worked on it. So thank you.

Senator Ball. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to recognize all the work that you've put into this. To your point about when it started, I remember hearing that you were working on a data center bill probably back in maybe last June, very shortly after session last year. I know you've put just a lot of hours into this, a lot of conversations. So I'm sorry to see that it didn't come together, but just want to recognize all the work that you've put into this, and thank you for that.

Any further comments from the committee? Okay, I have some comments. Senator Kipp, I know how hard you worked on this bill. You commit yourself so fully when you believe in something, and this has been such a journey for you. I have kept, I just want to give you my deep, deep gratitude for hanging in there and doing absolutely everything you could. And I would like to point out that oftentimes when agreements aren't reached until the very end of session. That is not usually the sponsor's fault. You went to the table in good faith. Many people showed up at the table in good faith, and I'm incredibly discouraged that this is where we are. I have never, never received, I mean, maybe, with some of the really hot issues, but I have received so many emails about this. Really, it's bordering on the most emails of any issue I've ever received, And people are overwhelmingly against any kind of incentives. So the fact that you all worked so hard to put some kind of incentive structure in place is really meaningful, and I hope it's as appreciated as it should be. And so now no one gets incentives for data centers, but we also don't have any guardrails for data centers, which is really, really troubling. There's so many things about that. that are scary with water use and land use and all the things that we've talked about. Many, many bills have been passed or restructured or whatever in the name of technology and innovation, refusing to put guardrails around things because we have to allow innovation and we have to create jobs. And I'm not by any means, hear me, I am not dismissing the importance of creating jobs. but we have to decide who we want to be. We have to decide who we want to be. And I think the vote, you know, our constituents have spoken. 91%, that was a pretty impressive number that you quoted at the beginning of your comments. We've really got to figure this out. Solutions aren't always perfect, but we have to start somewhere. And I'm really disappointed to hear that we're not going to be starting with this bill this year. So my thanks and deep gratitude as well to all of the people who came to the table in good faith and tried to make something happen. So thanks again.

That is a proper motion. Ms. Forbes, please call the roll.

Aye.

At the request of the sponsor, yes.

Aye.

Aye.

Yes.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

At the request of the sponsor, aye. Yeah, that motion passes unanimously. Can you go to the consent? That was good. There she is. Okay. Thank you, Senator Kipp, and thank you, committee. that concludes business of transportation and energy today.