13 actions Denver Mayor, Council should take to tackle air pollution, climate change

DENVER: From removing barriers for rooftop solar adoption to launching a new shuttle to Denver Mountain Parks, CoPIRG released a set of thirteen actions that Denver should take over the next six months to tackle air pollution and climate change. CoPIRG will submit the recommendations to Mayor-elect Michael Johnston, his transition committees and the new Denver City Council today.

The types of actions range from Denver executive orders and ordinances to leveraging the power of the city to advocate before regulatory bodies like the Public Utilities Commission and Air Quality Control Commission to maximizing available federal funds from both infrastructure grants and individual tax incentives. CoPIRG’s recommendations focus on actions that can be taken in the next six months to tackle some of the top sources of pollution in the city in areas where progress today could make a long-term impact.

“For a greener, healthier Denver, we need to clean up our air and reduce climate pollution,” said Danny Katz, executive director of CoPIRG. “Denver has plenty of goals and benchmarks, so we’re offering thirteen measurable actions to advance important solutions including making it easier to go solar or install a heat pump, expand transit ridership and invest in safer, more walkable streets and accelerate the shift to cleaner, electric-powered vehicles, homes and lawn equipment.”

The thirteen recommendations include:

• Multiple ways to expand rooftop solar including boosting a program that provides solar to human service providers to advocating at the Public Utilities Commission for a fix to the lengthy process and cost to connect new panels to the grid
• Only purchasing electric vehicles for the city’s fleets
• Expanding Denver’s all-electric building codes to new residential homes
• Continuing to invest in street safety improvements, also called Vision Zero, and securing a large federal grant to ramp up walking, biking and transit connectivity on the Colfax viaduct in an area that will see massive transformation in the coming years
• Launching a new shuttle to Denver Mountain Parks
• Using the city’s bully pulpit to inaugurate a Green Savings Week in the fall to maximize the number of Denverites who benefit from the unprecedented green tax incentives, and to put a particular focus on ramping up the installation of heat pumps
• Leveraging the mayor’s message on the DIA people mover to increase transit usage
• Advocating for the passage of both the phase out of the dirtiest lawn and garden equipment and the adoption of the newest state electric vehicle rule at the Air Quality Control Commission
• Working at the PUC and with Xcel Energy to fix a grid capacity problem that undermines solar and electrification in neighborhoods across the city

“Denver is a large city and has a powerful voice. Sometimes the most impactful action is not to pass a new city law but to advocate for a regional or state rule or to use the power of the bully pulpit to help thousands more Denverites pull down tens of millions of more green dollars,” said Katz. “This isn’t everything that needs to be done over the next six months to tackle air pollution and climate change. But these are actions in key areas that can be accomplished and solidify the city’s green foundation to build from for the rest of the term.”

The full list of recommendations can be found here.