Washington, D.C. - U.S. Representatives Jared Polis, Ed Perlmutter, Ken Buck, and U.S. Senator Michael Bennet wasted no time in asking Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Administrator Ronald Batory to update the Train Horn Rule after his confirmation on Feb. 13. Train horns create a persistent nuisance to residents and stifle economic development for businesses throughout Northern Colorado. The legislators authored a letter urging Administrator Batory to modernize the rule in a way that ensur... Read more

Members of the House subcommittee that oversees NASA continued their advocacy for sending humans to Mars in 2033 as the Trump Administration interjects a return to the lunar surface in NASA’s future exploration plans. Several also expressed concern about the proposal to abolish NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and combine it with another part of the agency that focuses on development and operations. Former NASA Chief Technologist Bobby Braun, now the Dean of Engineering at the ... Read more

WASHINGTON — Members of the House space subcommittee raised concerns about elements of NASA’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal during a March 7 hearing, from the cancellation of a space telescope to restructuring of the agency’s technology programs. At the hearing by the space subcommittee of the House Science Committee, NASA Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot defended the budget proposal released last month, arguing that it supports human spaceflight efforts as well as science and aeronautic... Read more

While the Trump administration's budget proposal for fiscal year 2019 supports the long-term goal of sending humans to the moon and Mars, some members of Congress fear that the proposed shift for NASA's priorities could leave the agency's science missions in the dust. During a hearing on Capitol Hill today (March 7), several members of the House Space Subcommittee expressed concern over the budget proposal's request to cancel six upcoming missions from NASA's Astrophysics and Earth Science progr... Read more

WASHINGTON — Several members of the House Science Committee used a hearing on NASA’s latest budget proposal March 7 to criticize the Senate for not acting on the nomination of one of their colleagues to lead the agency. Testifying before the House space subcommittee on NASA’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal was Acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot, who has led the agency on an interim basis for more than 13 months. That is the longest NASA has been led by an acting administrator in the agency’... Read more

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner is doing some good for Conservation Colorado, but perhaps not in the way he would like. The state’s largest environment organization sent out a fundraising e-mail Wednesday with the Republican from Yuma as its centerpiece. Here’s what the pitch from deputy director Jessica Goad said, in part: "Wow. We knew Senator Cory Gardner was bad on environmental and public health issues, but after looking at his entire voting record from 2017 now we know that he actually couldn’t be ... Read more

Today President Trump said he plans to prohibit bump stocks by executive order, notwithstanding the lack of legal authority to impose such an administrative ban. "We can do that with an executive order," Trump told Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). "I'm going to write the bump stock, essentially, write it out. So you won't have to worry about bump stock[s]. Shortly that will be gone." Trump's determination to ban bump stocks by administrative fiat is a blatantly political attack on the rule of law tha... Read more

As the list of mass killings in the United States grows, so does the flow of money to members of Congress from the National Rifle Association and gun-rights groups. Between 1998 — a year before the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. — and 2017, the National Rifle Association spent $203.2 million to prop up its candidates, defeat gun control advocates seeking office and on lobbying. The effort has been successful. Since 1994, when then-President Bill Clinton signed a crime... Read more

WASHINGTON — In 2013, an ATF official signed a letter to a member of Congress saying that two bump stock devices examined by bureau technicians “are not subject to the provisions of federal firearms statutes” and are therefore legal. Now, three months after one such device was used to kill 58 in a mass-shooting in Las Vegas and more than a week since the Parkland, Fla., high school massacre, the author of that letter says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was wrong to OK th... Read more

Perhaps no other issue defined the American political landscape last year as much as health care. After seven years of railing against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the GOP spent the entirety of 2017 repeatedly trying to repeal it, then — when all efforts failed — sabotage it. Now, in 2018, President Donald Trump has made renewed calls for repeal. But Coloradans have not forgotten how disastrous Trump’s first year in office has been for American health care. At the very least, last year shows t... Read more