The Eastern Plains are vital to Colorado

Earlier this month, I was able to join Trent Loos on Rural Route Radio, where we discussed how “Colorado is the tip of the spear for the challenge in using the great resources the state has.”

I greatly appreciated the opportunity to talk about being a rural legislator, especially as it is an interesting time to be in politics. Coloradoans used to value the western way of life, but with the constant attacks on the agricultural and rural lifestyles, it is quickly going away. (To listen to this podcast, you can go to Spotify and search Rural Route Radio June 2, 2023.)

I feel that my biggest charge as a state senator (and state representative for the previous four years) from a frontier county is going to our Colorado State Capitol to educate my fellow legislators about agriculture and the Colorado frontier way of life. The truth of the matter is that they (my colleagues on both sides of the aisle from the urban/metro districts) just can’t even fathom that there are areas like Cheyenne County beyond their line of sight. Cheyenne County, like other frontier counties, has a population that can be spread out to equal one person per square mile. This lack of understanding has contributed to the rural/urban divide, and when you combine the lack of understanding with the fact that the Front Range has us greatly outnumbered, it has made it hard to get work done this past legislative session.

Three of my rural colleagues and I have come up with what we hope is a partial solution to this divide. We have extended an invitation to all of our fellow state senators and state representatives to join us on a two-day tour of the Eastern Plains. Discussions on this tour will focus on agriculture, water and energy — all of which are vital resources here in Colorado. We cannot afford to lose the amazing resources that Colorado has to offer, so we need to spread awareness of their importance to our state’s economy.

One of our state’s most important resources is water, and we as a state need to broaden our focus to include other water sources besides just the Colorado River. In all of our water resources, we need to stop prioritizing water for fish or lawns over water for crops and food production. If we lose our ability to produce food to feed the nation, we lose everything.

Energy resources are also very important in our state, but my fellow legislators are pushing their unrealistic climate agenda instead of using common sense approaches to meet the energy needs of our fellow citizens. For example, in some areas of southeast Colorado, there is a lot of methane that is being released from coal seams (not from old coal mine openings). We have the technology to capture this methane and use it as a valid energy source. If we don’t capture it, it will just go into the atmosphere (and that isn’t something that sits well with the Democrats’ climate agenda). Methane and carbon dioxide are commodities that are needed to sustain life, so why don’t we use this readily available resource? 

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