Colorado legislature delivers seven important wins for the public interest in 2026

DENVER — The Colorado state legislature wrapped its 2026 session on Wednesday, after passing several bills that should improve the lives of Coloradans and rejecting others that would have undermined our quality of life.

Seven actions in particular are victories for Colorado consumers and the health of our state:

• SB26-090 Rejected — Coloradans still have the broadest repair rights of any state in the country after a key House committee rejected an effort to exempt IT equipment from the state’s Right to Repair law. IT equipment such as servers and routers are used by Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, hospitals, schools, government agencies and more. Ensuring that these entities can access the tools they need to repair their IT equipment is a secure way to save money, reduce waste and pollution and extend the life of important equipment, reducing the impact of constantly producing new devices.  
• SB26-141 Passed — New dedicated money for wildlife crossings that will build more bridges, tunnels and overpasses across our major roads using a new optional $5 vehicle registration fee. Wildlife crossings help connect animals’ fragmented habitats and save lives by preventing vehicle-wildlife collisions. Wildlife crossings and fencing can reduce collisions by up to 90%. Between 2010 and 2024, across Colorado, collisions with wildlife resulted in 48 deaths and more than 5,000 injuries.  
• HB26-1326 Passed — A reauthorized Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with some new tools to help utility customers and ensure for-profit utilities provide a safe and cost-effective electric and gas grid that does not undermine our health or rip off consumers. The PUC’s new tools include an increase in the penalty the Commission can assess on for-profit utilities to hold them accountable, new strategies to cut waste in the utility plan approval process and new ways to hold utilities responsible for their quality of service.   
• SB26-016 Passed — A prohibition on the dumping of plastic pellets in Colorado. Plastic pellets are the building blocks of plastic products. The process to create them pumps pollution into our air and water at every step. And when they are dumped or spilled, they can take centuries to break down. Colorado law will now ban the dumping or spilling of pellets and companies will no longer be allowed to get a permit to dump them. 
• HB26-1289 Passed — More support for electric vehicles by increasing a state tax credit. Cleaner, electric-powered cars mean cleaner air, healthier communities and a safer climate. Electric vehicles can also help people cut costs, since they can fuel their vehicles for a fraction of what it costs at the gas pump. The legislature increased the current electric vehicle tax credit, helping more people choose cleaner transportation options. The bill also extends the life of tax credits for cleaner, electric lawn equipment from 2027 to 2030.
• HB26-1030 Rejected — Colorado taxpayers are protected from subsidizing costly, big data centers. A key House committee rejected a proposal to allow big data centers to get massive tax breaks over the next 20 years. Because of the huge impacts that even a single new data center, much less dozens, can have, we need special, carefully thought-out rules to ensure we protect Coloradans’ health, natural resources and wallets and avoid biting off more than we can chew. This bill would have incentivized more data centers in Colorado without providing meaningful consumer protections.  
• SB26-003 Passed – Colorado will have a more robust electric vehicle battery recycling program that puts an emphasis on reuse and refurbishment. With nearly 200,000 electric vehicles (EV) on the road in the state, and many more coming as Coloradans switch to cleaner, more cost effective electric-powered cars, Colorado will have more EV batteries to manage when the vehicles reach the end of their life. This bill will ban the dumping of these batteries in landfills, reducing landfill pollution and the amount of critical minerals from batteries that get tossed instead of reused. It also creates a system to collect EV batteries, funded by vehicle manufacturers, with an emphasis on reuse and refurbishment, extending the life of these batteries and reducing the costs and pollution from mining to produce new ones.  

Some of these bills still require Gov. Jared Polis’ signature to become law. The governor has 30 days to sign or veto bills.