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A few years back, my friend Norm told me that when he was growing up in northern New Mexico in the 1950s and early ‘60s, his family often drove up to the La Plata Mountains in southwestern Colorado. From there he could see all the way to the Sandia Mountains outside Albuquerque, some 200 miles away.

His statement saddened me, since in all the time I spent on Four Corners high points, a persistent haze always limited my visibility to maybe 50 or 60 miles, blurring Shiprock’s sharp spires into a fuzzy silhouette. That’s because a fleet of massive coal-fired power plants in the region churned out haze-producing pollutants, harming humans and the ecology and blotting out vistas from the San Juans to the Sandias. It seemed as if I’d never get a view as clear as Norm’s.

But over the last decade, the failing economics of coal and clean air regulations shuttered those power plants. That means the air on the Colorado Plateau — when not sullied by the ever-lengthening wildfire season — has become cleaner as the coal industry faded away.

The shuttered plants include Mojave, Navajo, Nucla, Escalante, San Juan and, most recently, Cholla. The closures certainly sharpened the view of folks all over the region. But more importantly, they kept tens of millions of tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and oodles of harmful pollutants (arsenic, mercury, sulfur dioxide and soot) out of the lungs of nearby residents, many of them on the Navajo Nation.

Yet in defiance of the free market that has boosted renewables, the Trump administration is acting to undo those positive changes and make the air dirty again by throwing multiple lifelines to the flagging coal industry.

It has eviscerated environmental protections limiting mercury and other toxic air emissions, ended Obama-and Biden-era freezes on new federal coal leases, and rescinded limits on carbon dioxide emissions. The administration has also blocked utilities from shutting down plants that are old, dirty and more costly than other power sources.

Trump purports to do this in the name of “unleashing” coal from regulatory constraints so it can be mined and burned to achieve American “energy dominance.” Yet it’s unlikely that unleashing the industry will reverse its decline.

It’s true that delaying implementation of the mercury rule will enable the Colstrip coal plant in Montana — one of the nation’s dirtiest facilities — to continue operating without expensive new pollution control equipment. Generally, though, utilities such as Xcel Energy, Intermountain Power Agency and Tri-State Generation & Transmission are moving forward with plans to retire their coal plants, namely because the aging facilities are dirty, inefficient, inflexible and, most of all, no longer profitable. They just can’t compete with natural gas, solar, wind, and other, cleaner energy sources.

When signing one of his fossil-fuel-friendly orders, Trump said he would “save” the Cholla coal plant near Holbrook, Arizona, from destruction, adding, “We’re going to have that plant opening and burning the clean coal, beautiful clean coal, in a very short period of time.”

But its operator, Arizona Public Service, said it had already procured cleaner, cheaper generation for the plant, and had no desire to keep burning coal at Cholla. There was no save needed.

If Trump were truly interested in energy dominance and abundance, he would have supported the fastest-growing energy sources — wind and solar power. Instead, his administration is doing all it can to stifle them, from eliminating production tax credits for renewable energy in his “big, beautiful” budget bill, to slowing down permits for clean energy developments on public lands. Both utility-scale and rooftop solar will be affected, boosting the prospects of oil and gas, coal and nuclear.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, in an Economist column, revealed the philosophy behind the administration’s fossil-fuel fetishization. He wrote that climate change is “not an existential crisis,” merely a “byproduct of progress.” He said he was willing to take the “modest negative trade-off” of climate change — along, presumably, with ever more devastating heat waves, wildfires and floods— “for this legacy of human advancement.”

He is probably correct in saying that climate change and the sullied air over the Colorado Plateau are byproducts of so-called progress. But they are also nasty, deadly and avoidable. Ultimately, going backward toward coal will not only wreck progress, but perhaps life on earth as we know it.

Jonathan Thompson is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He has long covered the West’s natural resources.

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First things first: You can get an abortion in Colorado, whether procedural or medication abortion. If you are on Medicaid, you can still get an abortion in Colorado. Individual providers can still provide abortion care to people who need it, regardless of whether they have public or private insurance. And if you have a problem paying for your abortion, please reach out to the Cobalt Abortion Fund for help.

What’s happening to Planned Parenthood is terrible, it’s very real, and it is hurting access to abortion care in Colorado. Planned Parenthood was targeted by President Donald Trump’s budget bill, just as they have been for years, and their patients are paying the price. The chaos is intentional: health care providers are scrambling to adapt to the latest court rulings, patients are seeing their appointments cancelled, rescheduled, and moved around, and nobody has a clear idea of what’s next.

The recent federal budget bill, which should be called the Forced Birth Bill, penalizes Planned Parenthood not only for offering abortion services but also for providing comprehensive reproductive health care, including STI testing and contraception. It is a direct attack on bodily autonomy and the right to control a person’s own body, their reproductive health and freedom, and their social, economic, and political power.

The bill imposes a punitive one-year ban on Planned Parenthood for offering these services, preventing them from receiving federal Medicaid funding during that period. The result has been a denial of basic health care to people most in need of it, and a denial of control, dignity and self-determination.

As current and former providers, we are feeling the attacks ourselves, just as we did in those terrible days right after the Dobbs decision. The deliberate trauma hurts everyone. And it has again created a crisis of care here in a state where abortion is protected both in law and in the state Constitution with Amendment 79.

It’s important to understand Amendment 79 is not nullified by the federal bill. Instead, it becomes even more vital, making it more important to ensure Coloradans’ guaranteed access to abortion care. Coloradans have a constitutional right to access abortion under Amendment 79. But now, thanks to Trump’s budget bill, Coloradans are being forced to navigate a system that delays, deflects, and denies.

Reproductive freedom is not a theoretical policy value. It’s a lived need.  We have heard that need every day, from Colorado patients and those fleeing abortion bans in other states. It’s one that fundamentally affects the present and the future of our patients.

We are under no illusions that as abortion providers we are all under threat and that abortion opponents will come for us, too. The goal has always been to ban abortion, whether it’s by explicit legislative dictate or by making it impossible to provide care by burying patients and providers both in a pile of confusion and red tape.

The crisis for Planned Parenthood is not just a political issue. It directly impacts some of the most at-risk people and populations in Colorado and across the nation.  It’s a racial and economic justice issue, and our communities deserve better.

The bottom line is that people with abortion care appointments with individual providers should keep them.  Those needing appointments should make them. And those who need procedural or practical support can reach out to the Cobalt Abortion Fund for help.

We don’t know what’s next. But we stand in solidarity with our colleagues at Planned Parenthood, and to anyone who comes to us in need of abortion care.

Don Aptekar is a retired ObGyn who served patients in Colorado for 50 years. Kara Alexandrovic is a practicing ObGyn in the Denver Metro area. 

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University sports, have long been a field of passion, competition, and intense loyalty. Yet beneath the surface of packed stadiums and thrilling games lies a chaotic, poorly regulated, and rapidly evolving landscape that closely resembles the Wild West of the 19th century. This comparison is not merely insightful; it highlights deep issues around governance, money, power, and freedom that define the current state of college sports.

The Wild West was known for its absence of centralized authority, where law enforcement was sparse and rules were often made or broken on the spot. Similarly, today, college athletics operates in a murky zone, where governance is fragmented and enforcement is inconsistent.

The NCAA has traditionally been the main regulatory body, but its rules are often outdated, contradictory, and selectively enforced. Recent developments, including Supreme Court decisions, have complicated the regulatory environment. Schools, conferences, and even states are creating their own rules, leading to a patchwork system with little national uniformity.

Like the Wild West, this regulatory confusion creates opportunities for exploitation and controversy. Some schools and athletes benefit from loopholes and aggressive interpretations of these guidelines, while others are penalized inconsistently. The lack of clear, enforceable rules creates turf wars among schools, agents, and sponsors, all competing for advantage.

The Wild West was fueled by the gold rush — a frenzy for wealth that attracted prospectors, businessmen, and opportunists. College athletics today is driven by a similar rush for revenue and influence.

Major college sports, especially football and basketball, generate billions of dollars annually through media agreements, merchandising, institutional support, student fees, ticket sales, booster donations and sponsorships. Universities see athletics as a lucrative branding and fundraising tool, while coaches command multimillion-dollar salaries: some over $10 million annually.

This gold rush creates intense competition and sometimes ruthless behavior. Schools invest heavily in facilities, direct compensation to athletes, and recruiting to gain a competitive edge. Coaches and agents maneuver aggressively to secure top talent. Young athletes must navigate complex contracts with little or no legal and financial advice.

In today’s sports environment, ethical boundaries can be unclear or ignored, reminiscent of the lawlessness and opportunism of the Wild West. Scandals involving recruiting violations, tampering with other school’s players, academic deception, and dishonest compensation are common, and the stakes have never been higher.

The Wild West was a place of both opportunity and danger, where settlers could build new lives but faced unpredictable threats. College athletes today inhabit a similar frontier.

For many players, college sports offer a chance to showcase their talents, earn scholarships, earn million-dollar direct compensation and potentially launch professional careers. Recent court decisions have opened new territory for athletes to monetize their fame while still in school, and generous transfer policies are a revolutionary shift from previous eras.

Arch Manning has a name, image and likeness valuation of an estimated $6.8 million. The Texas Longhorns’ quarterback signed a deal with Red Bull in January and has a company peddling autographs on his behalf. Carson Beck who is now with the University of Miami after using the transfer portal to leave Georgia, is valued at $4.3 million, and Jeremiah Smith, studying at Ohio State University, is a close third in the league, worth an esitmated $4.2 million.

However, these opportunities come with serious risks. Many athletes face intense pressure to perform while balancing academics and their personal lives. Injuries can end careers abruptly. Athletes can suffer Long-term health impacts, particularly in football, where repeated hits can lead to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) later in life. The lack of comprehensive protections and support systems for athletes echoes the Wild West’s perilous landscape, where pioneers often had to fend for themselves amid uncertainty and danger.

In the Wild West, mavericks, often rebellious individuals — played enormous roles. Today’s college athletics landscape features similar figures: Deion Sanders (University of Colorado) is known for his charismatic personality, unique recruiting style, and emphasis on culture change; Mario Cristobal (University of Miami) is an aggressive recruiter with a brash style, known for his strong emphasis on physicality and toughness; and Brent Venables (University of Oklahoma) is a defensive mastermind bringing innovative schemes and a fiery coaching demeanor.

With the recent emergence of mandated pay-for-play, individual athletes have become entrepreneurs. They also have the autonomy to sign endorsement contracts for their personal brands in ways previously unimaginable. Meanwhile, independent sports agents, coaches, and marketing firms aggressively recruit talent, sometimes clashing with schools and the NCAA.

Boosters and donors also act as powerful, sometimes shadowy players. Their financial support can sway recruiting and program decisions.

The Wild West was often tainted by territorial disputes and rivalries, often settled through showdowns or alliances. College athletics mirrors this dynamic through intense rivalries not just on the field but in recruitment, conference realignment, and media markets.

Schools compete fiercely to sign top recruits, sometimes engaging in unethical gray areas. Conferences are reshaping themselves based on media revenue, streaming platforms potential, rather than geography, game start times or tradition, leading to shifting allegiances and tensions.

These turf wars create a volatile environment where alliances can shift quickly, power balances change, and uncertainty reigns.

College athletics is undeniably a modern-day Wild West — a frontier of opportunity, risk, money, and power, shaped by fragmented rules and fierce competition. Like the frontier towns of old, it is a place where fortunes can be made or lost, where law and order struggle to keep pace with rapid change, and where students navigate a complex landscape of alliances and rivalries.

Understanding college athletics through this lens helps explain its current challenges and the urgent need for reform. Clearer regulation, better protections for athletes, transparency in financial dealings, and a balanced approach to governance could help tame this wild frontier.

Until then, college sports will remain a thrilling yet unpredictable field — where legends are made, fortunes are chased, dreams are lost and the spirit of the Wild West lives on.

The wild, wild West often occurred when there was no sheriff in town.

College sports now more than ever needs a modern-day sheriff to supervise present outlaws like Billy the Kid and pioneers like Buffalo Bill.

Jim Martin was an adjunct professor who taught Sports Law at CU and DU-chaired the University of Colorado committee on athletics for many years and has a passion for public speaking engagements. He can be reached at jimmartinesq@gmail.com.  

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No one in my family owned slaves, I used to say. It was a reasonable assumption based on family lore.

It is with the humility that comes with having been mistaken that I view the controversy surrounding Rep. Gabe Evans’ claims about his Mexican-born grandfather. On the campaign trail last year for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, Evans described his abuelito, Cuauhtemoc Chavez, as a man who “did it the right way” when he immigrated to America.

The truth is more complex, an investigation by Colorado Newsline revealed. Chavez came to the U.S. illegally as a young child. He was arrested as a teen and subject to deportation proceedings. At some point in his youth he was arrested but not convicted of attempted burglary. He later served in World War II and became a naturalized U.S. citizen. The article suggests that Chavez was granted citizenship, not because of his service to the nation as Evans has stated, but because a 1944 law made it so candidates for naturalization no longer had to show proof of lawful entry.

Did Evans’ grandfather become a citizen “the right way?” The answer is not black and white. He came here illegally but was ultimately naturalized through a legal process that is no longer available to immigrants who first arrive illegally.

As for my family, my dad’s kin emigrated from Germany and the Russian Empire decades after the Civil War. My mom’s family immigrated to Pennsylvania, one of the first states to abolish slavery, and Maryland from England and Central Europe beginning in the 17th century. My mom’s great-great-grandfather, Joseph Lopez, born Joseph Getward, deserted from the Royal Navy to come to the U.S. He later joined the New York Volunteer Infantry, was captured, and ended up at Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prisoner-of-war camp. Adding all this up, odds seemed good that my family lacked a connection to the horrors of human bondage.

That was until last weekend, when I learned that Joseph Lopez’s daughter-in-law (my great-great-grandmother) had a great-great-grandfather who owned slaves and with one of them fathered a son, her great-grandfather, my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Guarding against the deeply racist attitudes of the day, my relatives of mixed ethnic heritage started a family rumor that their darker skin tone must have come from a Native American ancestor.

Turns out my assumptions about my family were incorrect. The truth is far more complex; my family tree includes at least one slaveholder and at least one slave. If I weigh in on a political issue like racial reparations and choose to invoke my family history, I cannot simply say “my whole family did it right.” In fact, if I searched further, I would find other slave owners and slaves even on my dad’s side. Pre-Christian Germanic tribes practiced slavery, too. It was an abhorrent practice throughout human history. No one’s family is a paragon of virtue.

It’s with that perspective that I can offer Evans grace for his mistake. Colorado Newsline produces some excellent investigative journalism, but as a far-left news organization, don’t expect any grace for Republicans from them. Rightwing media reacted the same way, accusing Sen. Elizabeth Warren of insincerity when she overstated her Native American heritage. How do we know she wasn’t relying on family lore? I have never met Evans, but it seems more likely he didn’t know the nuances of his grandfather’s case than that he deliberately misspoke. Knowing how I was wrong about my own family history, I’m going to give them both the benefit of the doubt.

The fact that Evans has been more circumspect in recent interviews suggests that once he knew the truth, he course-corrected. Give him credit for cosponsoring H.R. 4393, which would enable people working in the U.S. illegally to receive legal status and continue to work here, if they meet certain conditions. It would also speed up the asylum process and allow immigrants brought here illegally as young children and those with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to obtain legal status. It is the kind of practical, humanitarian, compromise immigration reform we need. Similar legislation was blocked in 2024 by then-candidate Donald Trump, who wanted to keep the contentious issue bleeding throughout the election year. There is no reason it should not pass now.

But Evans should go a step further. He should use his unique family background to champion humane treatment of illegal immigrants, even though it risks the ire of the president and the far right. Every person, citizen or immigrant, here legally or not, deserves due process. Too few Republicans are willing to champion this constitutional guarantee. If Evans can lead on this issue, maybe others will follow.

Krista Kafer is a Sunday columnist for The Denver Post.

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As a former mayor of Colorado Springs, I know first-hand the overwhelming challenge faced by local leaders trying to balance the books while keeping the lights on at the firehouse, police station, library and every other essential service – all without raising the ire of the neighbors who elected you.

So I’m not without sympathy for the Palmer Lake Board of Trustees as it faces intense and often vitriolic public opposition to a proposal to annex land two miles outside the town boundary to make way for a Buc-ee’s gas station with 120 pumps, and 780 parking spaces.

But Buc-ee’s is not the magic bullet of tax revenue some in Palmer Lake, a town of just 2,600, hope. Rather than save the town, the massive travel center instead is likely to end up killing precisely what makes Palmer Lake and the surrounding Tri-Lakes region a unique Colorado treasure.

Even if you’re not a local, you probably are familiar with the vast Greenland Ranch open space that stretches from the mountains to the plains on either side of I-25 between Larkspur and the summit of Monument Hill. Greenland Ranch’s 40,000 acres is the only protected open space along I-25 between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs and is a crown jewel – a living and thriving reminder of the Front Range before the sprawl of urban development.

Buc-ee’s wants to build its massive travel mecca directly across a two-lane road from this ecological linchpin, adding thousands of cars every day, flushing millions of gallons of water down its famously clean toilets and casting an unnatural glow from its parking lot lights into a critical big-game migration corridor.

Over the past three decades, Coloradans have invested more than $100 million to preserve and protect the Greenland Ranch open space. It was a cause celebre for two governors – Roy Romer and Bill Owens – and Liberty Media founder John Malone played a crucial financial role in protecting the ranch from development. It is something the state rightly should be proud of and fierce to protect.

Nowhere should that be more true than in Palmer Lake because the open space commitment all Coloradans have made over the years insulates and protects the bucolic appeal of the town. I grew up in the Pikes Peak region and while my law firm has clients that oppose Buc-ee’s, my opposition is as a lifelong resident who has watched as the wild places that are the birthright of Colorado children are lost forever to inappropriate development.

What makes Buc-ee’s inappropriate is this location. Buc-ee’s is, by all accounts, a great place for weary travelers to grab a bite and take a break from the road. I oppose depriving landowners of their land without compensation (and, in fact, the owners have at least one backup offer to purchase and protect the property). All of us should reject a proposal that negatively impacts a resource the public paid – and pays – to protect while a private out-of-state corporation makes big bucks.

As a former local official, I know that strategic development builds the economic foundation of towns to provide vital community services. But development needs to make sense and fit the character of the town. In Johnstown, Colorado’s only other Buc-ee’s location, local officials have seen other businesses locate next to Buc-ee’s to offer complementary services and products. Those kinds of synergies are a lot less likely at the proposed El Paso County location. Why? Because the pine-studded property is bordered by a rural church, I-25 and the Greenland Ranch.

Palmer Lake’s land grab would let the town capture whatever ostensible revenue Buc-ee’s generates while dumping all of the inevitable downsides – traffic, noise, pollution and light – on citizens in unincorporated El Paso County who have no voice whatsoever in Palmer Lake elections.

In addition to not being very neighborly, annexation to make way for a Buc-ee’s is bound to change the entire region. Once up and running, Buc-ee’s would serve roughly four times as many travelers every day as Palmer Lake has residents, which would require hiring new police and fire personnel and new equipment while jamming thousands of cars onto country roads.

The Tri-Lakes region of which Palmer Lake is a part is a unique slice of Colorado as it once was. There are too few places like it left. Palmer Lake trustees may believe they are saving their town by welcoming Buc-ee’s, but if doing so requires sacrificing the elements that make Palmer Lake and the Tri-Lakes special, what, in the end, are they really saving?

John Suthers is the former mayor of Colorado Springs, former Colorado Attorney General and served as the United States Attorney for the District of Colorado. He is a shareholder at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

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