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Hickenlooper, Colorado House Announce High-Tech Grant Legislation

More focus on economic development announced today from the incoming Democratic-controlled Colorado House, Gov. John Hickenlooper, and even some cooperative Republicans. As FOX 31’s Eli Stokols reports this afternoon after a press conference:

The legislation, introduced at the Capitol Monday by Gov. John Hickenlooper and a bipartisan group of lawmakers, supports the state’s advanced industries, which include bioscience, aerospace, electronics and information technology with grants ranging from $150,000 for research and development to $500,000 for infrastructure funding.

The governor’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade would manage the grant program.

Incoming Democratic House Speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, called the proposal, dubbed the Advanced Industries Accelerator Act, a “strategic investment in economic development.”

Supporters of the bill say they want to take advantage of the research institutions and federal labs in Colorado to spur collaboration with private-sector funders.

Stokols reports the Democratic sponsor will be Rep. Dave Young, and Republican Rep. Cheri Gerou will co-sponsor. With this bill, both the incoming Democratic-led House and Senate have announced clean “jobs and economy” legislation as their lead-off agenda items.

Given the inevitably high profile of civil unions, and other bills whose passage was made a certainty by the GOP’s loss of the House, making jobs the first big push is a smart idea.

Hickenlooper Announces Big “Obamacare” Medicaid Expansion

A press release from Gov. John Hickenlooper’s office today:

Gov. John Hickenlooper announced plans today to save more than $280 million in Medicaid spending over 10 years, permitting the prudent expansion of coverage in Colorado. Projections show the savings, existing provider fee structure and other health-related revenues will more than cover the cost of the expansion.

“We worked diligently over the past several months to find savings in order to expand coverage,” Hickenlooper said. “Not one dollar from the state’s general fund will be used for this expansion, even in 2017 when the federal government begins to reduce its share.”

The new coverage levels are authorized by the federal Affordable Care Act and will expand Medicaid coverage to Coloradans earning up to 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) beginning on Jan. 1, 2014.

The AP via CBS4 adds context:

At least 14 states and Washington, D.C., already have indicated they would try to expand Medicaid, a signature goal of the new health care law. Governors in nine states have said they won’t participate. A Supreme Court ruling last summer made the Medicaid expansion voluntary for states, rather than mandatory.

The Medicaid overhaul is one of the two main ways the federal health law expands coverage to most of the 50 million uninsured U.S. residents.

Here’s a statement from the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative:

We applaud Governor Hickenlooper for supporting the extension of quality, affordable healthcare to 160,000 uninsured Coloradans through Medicaid.  This is a crucial investment in the economic security of our state. We look forward to working with the administration to plan the new Medicaid program this year and implement it next year because all Coloradans should be able to get the health coverage they need, when they need it.

And the Colorado Hospital Association:

CHA commends Gov. Hickenlooper for his decision to support Medicaid expansion under the provisions of the ACA. Strengthening and expanding Medicaid will lead to improved physical and economic health for all of Colorado. More than 161,000 Coloradans will now be eligible for health care coverage through Medicaid. That means thousands of Colorado families will have access to the primary and preventative care, early diagnoses and treatment they need in order to live healthier and higher quality lives.

The expansion of Medicaid to cover some 160,000 more uninsured Coloradans is mostly financed, at least in the short term, through the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. “Obamacare,” through 2017 when the state’s share of the cost will gradually increase to 10%. Even then, Hickenlooper says the savings his administration is finding in the system, the hospital Medicaid provider fee passed in 2009, and other changes should account for the expenditure. This will help hospitals struggling to care for uninsured patients, and help all the rest of us who pick up part of those costs, in addition to increasing affordable access to health care.

And again, more people with health coverage means a healthier population generally. If you think about that every time a stranger coughs in your personal space, for example, it should be easy to understand how expanding access to care helps everybody. Somewhere in there that becomes good for the economy, too, a point not lost on Colorado’s pro-business Governor.

One thing we haven’t seen yet is objections from the GOP minority, but no doubt they are coming. Hickenlooper doesn’t need legislative approval for this expansion, which he claims will not impact the general fund, but that’s unlikely to stop Sen. Greg Brophy from complaining about all the extra money poor people will have for air conditioning and lottery tickets now.

Hickenlooper Proposes Gun, Mental Health Access Reforms

As the Durango Herald’s Joe Hanel reports:

Gov. John Hickenlooper announced plans Tuesday to improve the state’s psychiatric-crisis care and keep mentally unstable people from buying guns.

Hickenlooper and his Cabinet began working on the plan just days after the Aurora movie theater massacre in July, and they scheduled Tuesday’s announcement well before a gunman killed 20 children and seven adults and himself last Friday in Connecticut.

“We have a duty after tragedy to look at what we do, how we act and how we help others,” Hickenlooper said.

Hickenlooper wants Colorado courts to send mental-health commitment records to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in real time so they can be used for background checks of people who want to buy guns. Currently, the CBI gets the information twice a year on a CD-ROM.

Hickenlooper could not explain why it has taken so long to send the information to the CBI.

“There are too many things like that in government,” he said.

As upset as Republicans are about Gov. John Hickenlooper’s recent embrace of modest gun law reforms in Colorado, it’s going to be very hard on a practical level to find opposition to closing the “loophole” noted above. The idea that in the modern connected world, the Colorado Bureau of Investigations only receives notifications about mental health commitments twice a year will be rightly considered absurd by most citizens, even as the gun lobby indiscriminately, if toothlessly, declares any such attempt to improve existing law a threat.

The second proposal Hanel reports on from Gov. Hickenlooper, to create a new mental health hotline and walk-in crisis centers, refutes criticism from some Republicans that mental health access should be the focus, not restricting access to guns. Presumably this means the $18 million Hickenlooper is seeking to pay for that will not be a problem.

These proposals from Hickenlooper are unlikely to represent everything we’ll see on the issue in the upcoming Colorado legislative session; look for legislation on universal background checks on gun sales, as well as a possible ban on certain high-capacity ammunition magazines. We don’t how how much more will be possible at the state level, but these are significant measures–a major reversal of momentum on the issue from before last summer. And they’re the kinds of common-sense measures that even a majority of gun owners say they support.

In fact, we really can’t see how anyone can rationally oppose any of these now.

Hickenlooper: Let’s Talk (Modest) Gun Control Reforms Next Year

UPDATE #4: From President Barack Obama’s emotional statement today:

The majority of those who died today were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old.  They had their entire lives ahead of them — birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own.  Among the fallen were also teachers — men and women who devoted their lives to helping our children fulfill their dreams.

So our hearts are broken today — for the parents and grandparents, sisters and brothers of these little children, and for the families of the adults who were lost.  Our hearts are broken for the parents of the survivors as well, for as blessed as they are to have their children home tonight, they know that their children’s innocence has been torn away from them too early, and there are no words that will ease their pain.

As a country, we have been through this too many times.  Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago — these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children.  And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.

—–

UPDATE #3: The first Colorado Republican to opine on the “is it too soon to talk about gun control?” question, quite predictably, is Senate Minority Leader Bill Cadman.



—–

UPDATE #2: A statement now available on the Connecticut shootings from Gov. Hickenlooper:

“The shooting in Connecticut is absolutely horrific and heartbreaking. We know too well what impact this kind of violence has on a community and our nation. Our thoughts and prayers are immediately with the families of those killed. We can offer comfort, but we all know the pain will stay forever.”

And from Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado:

“This tragic and senseless shooting is deeply troubling and saddening. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of the victims and their families affected by this terrible tragedy. We in Colorado experienced a similar tragedy earlier this year. Just as we came together then to grieve and support one another, Colorado and our nation will again pull together to support our friends in Connecticut.”

Also Sen. Michael Bennet, a Wesleyan graduate:

“The terrible news out of Connecticut is staggering. Like all Colorado families, my family is grieving and our hearts are with the victims, their families, and all of the students and employees at the school. This is a parent’s worst nightmare. As Coloradans, we know how this type of tragedy can shake a community to its core. We are here for Connecticut as they work together to heal in the days ahead.”

—–

UPDATE: Tragically apropos, CNN is reporting on yet another horrific mass shooting today, this time at a Connecticut elementary school.

—–

As reported by the AP via Politico yesterday:

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Hickenlooper said that the legislative session in January would be an appropriate time to take up a debate on gun control in his state.

“I wanted to have at least a couple of months off after the shooting in Aurora to let people process and grieve and get a little space, but it is, I think, now is the time is right,” Hickenlooper said.

The comments also come after a mass shooting at an Oregon mall and a murder-suicide involving a professional football player this month touched off a national debate over gun laws…

“When you look at what happened in Aurora, a great deal of that damage was from the large magazine on the AR-15 (rifle). I think we need to have that discussion and say, ‘Where is this appropriate?'”

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings at an Aurora movie theater last summer, Gov. John Hickenlooper expressed skepticism about whether regulations on firearms might have stopped the killer from obtaining his arsenal of weapons, saying on CNN just as one example:

“This person, if there were no assault weapons available, if there were no this or no that, this guy’s going to find something. Right? He’s going to know how to create a bomb,” [Hickenlooper] said.

In Colorado, the slightest move to regulate guns is sure to be met with a furious reaction from our local and very vocal pro-gun lobby. Hickenlooper’s comments last summer were seized upon by pro-gun conservatives as evidence that not even an horrific act of violence could shake the public’s support for easy access to guns, and helped feed a narrative in the press that nothing was going to change after Aurora. Polling on the issue tends to rely on how the question is phrased, with some polls showing persistent support (for years now) for reforms such as universal background checks, but conservative pollsters like Rasmussen showing the opposite.

It’s into this delicate environment that Gov. Hickenlooper has just bravely stepped, and Democrats should give him some credit for doing so. Hickenlooper’s moderate image, often upsetting to the liberal Democratic base, could lend key legitimacy to a push for modest reforms like universal background checks for firearm sales, or limits on outsize ammunition magazines as he mentioned above. Hickenlooper’s apparent willingness to invest his hoarded political capital on this issue could honestly do a lot to relegate the “U.N. gun grab” and other unserious opposition from the gun lobby–and Republican legislators who regurgitate them–to the fringe.

Hickenlooper: “Fracking” To Fight Climate Change?

Colorado’s Democratic governor throws the conservation community a curveball on the issue of human-caused climate change, versus the controversial practice of hydraulic fracture drilling for natural gas–as the Durango Herald reports:

Hickenlooper often talked about climate issues when he was mayor of Denver, but he has been quieter on the topic since he became governor. He spent 30 minutes Tuesday morning at a conference of the Colorado Climate Network, a group of local governments that studies ways to adjust to climate change.

Acknowledging that “it drives some of my friends crazy,” the Democratic governor said embracing natural gas is the only realistic way to cut American emissions of greenhouse gases.

Hickenlooper also urged people to ramp up pressure on Congress to extend the wind-production tax credit. But he saved his strongest endorsement for a fuel that has stirred controversy in recent years.

The United States never signed the Kyoto treaty to cut greenhouse emissions, but the country is on its way to meeting the target anyway thanks to natural gas, Hickenlooper said.

“We are more than halfway toward compliance because we have these innovations in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing,” he said.

Without wading too far into the contentious underlying issue, we will say that this represents a more intelligent argument from Gov. John Hickenlooper than he’s made in the past. Last year, Hickenlooper enraged environmentalists when he claimed in an energy industry-funded ad that fracking has never resulted in groundwater contamination–a claim that has been repeatedly disproven. Later, Hickenlooper claimed that “you can drink” fracking fluid, an extremely dubious claim based on one experimental “fracking” product that is not even required to be used. In yet another gaffe, Hickenlooper absurdly claimed that fracking has “literally no risk.”

These incidents cannot help but impact Hickenlooper’s credibility on the issue.

It’s clear that the public health issues presented by “fracking” in and around Colorado communities involve more immediate challenges than those presented by global climate change, though it’s true in the abstract that natural gas contributes less to that particular problem. In this latest offering, Hickenlooper presents natural gas as a “bridge” to future energy technology, and challenges opponents to find a workable alternative.

Bottom line: we’ll give Hickenlooper credit for a more intelligent case than he has made in the past, but it’s an equivocal case at best. And the question of whether “fracking’s” incremental climate change advantage offsets public health concerns? He definitely did not settle it.

Hickenlooper: “We Can Turn This Economy Around.”

Nobody can deny that the recession has started take its toll on Denver. With the recent trouble for media outlets The Rocky Mountain News and KWGN, coupled with local businesses slashing their workforces; it’s clear Denver has not been immune to the worldwide financial crisis.

So, you may be asking yourself, what does Denver’s government have planned to aid the struggling economy?

John Hickenlooper to the rescue, as The Denver Post reports:

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper said Thursday that the city will speed up planning and construction of hundreds of voter-approved projects in order to quickly pump money into the struggling economy.

Hickenlooper said the city will complete the more than 200 projects that were approved last year as part of the “Better Denver” bond issues in four years instead of five, as originally planned…

Doing the projects over a shorter time span could also save the taxpayers money on construction costs, he said [Elliot emphasis].

Yes, you read that right, not only will this plan put hundreds of millions of dollars–money that the taxpayers have already approved–into the local economy, but it could actually wind up saving us money.

With this kind of common sense approach to fiscal issues, the Mayor is offering the kind of leadership that other politicians have failed to provide. We can only hope that other politicians in this state will follow Hickenlooper’s example; and considering the importance of the upcoming legislative session, we can’t afford for them not to.

Hickenlooper Sponsors Bill to Protect IVF

(Promoted by Colorado Pols) Democrats in Washington have introduced legislation that would establish a statutory right to access in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technology services. U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) has co-sponsored the Access to Family Building Act, which he says will ensure no hopeful parent or doctor is punished for trying to […]

Hickenlooper Joins Call for Investigation Over Rising Utility Rates

As Colorado Public Radio reported last week, Xcel Energy says it has a “plan” to reduce utility costs now that enough consumers have complained about rising rates. That “plan” is essentially just to pass along savings from lower natural gas prices, which is something that you would hope a utility provider would be doing anyway. […]

Hickenlooper Unleashes His Inner Democrat

The headline here is intentionally snarky. You might remember about a year ago at this time, then-Senate candidate John Hickenlooper was getting gouged by Democratic Primary challenger Andrew Romanoff and friends for Hick’s purported lack of commitment to Democratic policies. Nevermind, of course, that Hickenlooper campaigned on a progressive agenda centered around building partnerships and […]

Hickenlooper or Gardner…and by How Much?

We haven’t asked readers this question since early July, when the consensus seemed to be that Democrat John Hickenlooper is headed for a comfortable victory over Republican Cory Gardner in November. What say you now, Polsters? Who is going to win Colorado’s marquee race? Senator Cory Gardner or former Governor John Hickenlooper? As always, we […]

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