Capitol Close Up: April 30th

 The finish line is near, with the General Assembly concluding its 2024 legislative session next Wednesday, May 8. With just one week left, there are several key bills that the CAHB Government Affairs Committee and lobby team are focused on, including:

Construction Litigation:

·     Senate Bill 24-106, the construction-litigation reform bill supported by our industry. The bill has been approved by the state Senate and is awaiting its first hearing in the House. We continue to work with the sponsors to address the opponents’ concerns in order to find a middle ground.

·     House Bill 24-1230, dubbed Protections for Real Property Owners, would put into place a 10-year statute of repose and pre-judgment interest, while also allowing single-family detached homeowners to join as a class action against a builder. HB24-1230 could shut down housing development by incentivizing more litigation and making insurance near impossible to obtain for builders. The bill has passed out of the House and Senate committee, and is awaiting a second reading on the Senate floor. We are part of a large coalition that opposes HB-1230 and any other attempts which proliferate lawsuits and reduce housing.

Dredge and fill:

·     House Bill 24-1379, this bill, sponsored by House Speaker Julie McCluskey and Representative Karen McCormick, would require the Water Quality Control Commission in the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to promulgate rules by May 31, 2025, to implement a state dredge and fill discharge authorization program and require the Division of Administration at CDPHE to administer and enforce authorizations for activities that will result in the discharge of dredged or fill material into state waters. The rules must focus on avoidance of, minimization of, and compensation for the impacts of dredge and fill activity. We are working with like-minded organizations to place guardrails on this program and ensure it can function appropriately.

·     Senate Bill 24-127, this version of dredge-and-fill legislation would create the Stream and Wetlands Protection Commission in the Department of Natural Resources and then require the commission to develop, adopt and maintain a dredge-and-fill permit program for regulating the discharge of dredged or fill material into certain state waters and providing protections for state waters, which protections are no more restrictive than the protections provided under the federal "Clean Water Act" as it existed on May 24, 2023. The CAHB supported this bill because it would have placed these responsibilities within DNR to provide proper expertise and oversight on this program; however, it has been amended to put these responsibilities within CDPHE. The CAHB still believes the major provisions of this bill are better for the industry than HB24-1379.

The GAC met last Friday and received updates on several introduced and proposed bills. The GAC took a position on the following bills. To review a complete list of the CAHB’s legislative positions—including bills that the GAC supported, opposed and monitored—please visit

https://www.statebillinfo.com/SBI/index.cfm?fuseaction=Public.Dossier&id=33775&pk=142&style=pinstripe

HB24-1463—Support—This bill would require that tap fees and system development fees imposed by the board of a special district must only be imposed in order to assign to developers a portion of the costs associated with new development or redevelopment; refrain from imposing costs associated with new development or redevelopment on existing customers; and ensure districts have sufficient funding and capacity to continue to manage and operate their water and sanitation systems. The bill would clarify that a district shall not, for reasons unrelated to the district's capacity to provide water or sanitation services, refuse to provide water or sanitation services to new development projects that have been approved by the relevant land use jurisdiction, and must assess the costs of increasing capacity and purchasing water rights and require developers to bear those costs, thereby ensuring that service is not denied arbitrarily.

SB24-218—Support—This proposal would require utilities in Colorado that serve 500,000 or more customers to utilities to upgrade their electricity distribution systems to support state decarbonization goals and to ensure they meet their obligation to connect and energize new customers without substantial delay. The bill also would require utilities to submit plans to create sufficient hosting capacity across their electrical distribution systems, present at least two future planning scenarios to show different future states of the distribution system, and provide analyses of current and future staffing levels. In evaluating distribution plans, the PUC will be required to evaluate whether the plans satisfy certain criteria, and utilities must submit reports to the General Assembly every two years after its distribution system plan is approved.

Position changes:

HB24-1008—Oppose—This legislation would require a subcontractor that receives a written demand for payment to forward a copy of the written demand for payment to the general contractor within three business days after receipt and then specifies that the general contractor and subcontractor are jointly and severally liable for all debts owed based on a wage claim or investigation that are incurred by the subcontractor acting under, by, or for the general contractor. We have been working with a coalition to achieve amendments that would ensure that general contractors, who are now aware of the wage theft, could have recourse and have another entity be the enforcing party. Negotiations broke down with the proponents of the bill without our concerns being resolved.

HB24-1083—Monitor—This legislation would require the Division of Insurance to conduct a study of construction liability insurance for construction professionals in Colorado. The bill would also require disclosure prior to closing the sale of a new residence, with the seller providing the purchaser and the

county clerk and recorder's office for the county where the new residence is located with information regarding the insurance coverage for the property. CAHB worked with the sponsors to remove problematic provisions of the bill and create a more focused study.

HB24-1300—Monitor—This legislation, as introduced, would require the 12 counties—Archuleta, Boulder, Chaffee, Clear Creek, Douglas, Eagle, El Paso, Gilpin, Gunnison, Jefferson, Ouray, and Summit—that require wildfire mitigation for new construction to leverage their existing wildfire mitigation expertise to establish a program for point-of-sale wildfire mitigation certification in connection with the sale of an existing residence in the county. CAHB was able to get changes to the bill that made the program voluntary for counties and removed the interference with the sale or transfer of property.

SB24-194—Monitor—This bill, as introduced, would revoke a fire protection district’s ability to levy a fee to fund expenditures for fire protection and emergency services and would prohibit a district from imposing a fee for responding to and extinguishing a fire occurring within the district's boundaries, but continues to allow a district to charge or seek reimbursement for such services. In its place, the bill would allow a district to impose an impact fee on the construction of new buildings, structures, facilities, or improvements on real property within the district's jurisdictional boundaries. Finally, the bill would allow districts the additional financial power to levy a sales tax within the district's jurisdiction if it is approved by a majority of the eligible electors within the district. CAHB worked with the proponents and sponsor to achieve amendments that clarified the intent of the bill and codified case law on direct nexus in the bill.