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Since 1965, Colorado Environmental Coalition has served Colorado's citizens and environment, playing a pivotal role in many of the state's major conservation battles. Over the years, the Coalition has worked on a range of issues, including wilderness, air quality, water quality, solid waste, land use, and transportation. Because wild lands and the wildlife they support can't speak for themselves, the Coalition works to educate citizens on how they can help speak out for Colorado's environment.
2007: 2007 proves to be one of the most pro-conservation sessions in our state's history. Over a dozen bills promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency are approved -- including the cornerstone of Gov. Ritter’s renewable energy platform -- HB 1281, which increases the Colorado Renewable Energy Standard to 20% by 2020. According to a report by Environment Colorado, the increased Renewable Energy Standard will add over $1.9 billion to the state’s economy by 2020.
2006: CEC's approach to advocacy and citizen engagement helps lead to the passage of a record number of environmental bills at the state legislature, and November sees the election of even more pro-conservation legislators, providing the best opportunity in more than four decades to make proactive progress on safeguarding the places and values we love so much in our state.
Bills to permanently protect Browns Canyon near Salida and the wild backcountry of Rocky Mountain National Park fall just short of passage in the final hours of the 109th Congress, but prospects for the future remain strong because of the near-unanimous grassroots support which CEC helped foster in nearby communities.
2005: CEC releases landmark proposal for sustainable water use: “Facing Our Future: A Balanced Water Solution for Colorado.”
CEC also joins with coalition partners to help convene a statewide Task Force, charged with making a recommendation on Colorado’s dwindling roadless forests. The Coalition also helped galvanize citizen support for protecting these pristine roadless forest areas, ensuring that the Roadless Task Force heared the diversity of Colorado voices backing preservation of these special places.
2004: Colorado Environmental Coalition celebrates two quality of life victories for Colorado. Statewide, voters approve a Renewable Energy Initiative that will bring 10 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2014. This win makes Colorado the first state in the country to have a renewable energy standard by voter initiative.
In the Denver metro area, voters approve investment for full build-out of light rail, commuter rail and bus service. This forward-thinking plan will fundamentally shape growth for the better in the metro area's booming communities, easing commutes along the way.
2001: After an extensive field inventory effort, the Citizens' Wilderness Proposal expands to include 270,000 acres in 17 areas of newly identified wilderness-quality lands.
CEC organizes a series of Town Hall Meetings on growth, bringing together nearly 500 Coloradans concerned about how their communities are growing. From these meetings come potential solutions that would help ensure Colorado's responsible growth: comprehensive land use planning, protecting open space and ranchland, and transportation planning.
In response to a barrage of policies and proposals geared toward increasing domestic oil and gas production, regardless of environmental impact, the Coalition teams with more than 30 conservation organizations across the Rocky Mountain West to promote responsible energy policy for western lands, to protect the remaining wild places on our public lands, and to protect communities and citizens from unregulated energy development.
2000: Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park: Expanded the previous National Monument by about 10,000 acres and redesignated it as a park; designated the 17,700-acre BLM Gunnison Gorge Wilderness immediately downstream, plus added 4,400 acres to the existing Black Canyon of the Gunnison Wilderness Area within the Park, and created the 58,000-acre Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area on BLM lands.
Great Sand Dunes National Park: Expanded the existing National Monument by over 100,000 acres (to a total of 146,000 acres), largely through the purchase of a 100,000-acre private ranch adjacent to the Monument’s north boundary, and redesignated it all as a National Park.
Black Ridge Canyons Wilderness and Colorado Canyons NCA: Designated a 75,000-acre BLM wilderness along the south bank of the Colorado River at the Utah state line, including 5,200 acres of newly designated BLM wilderness located within Utah. The Colorado Canyons NCA includes both the wilderness area plus another 47,000 acres on the river’s north side, encompassing the popular Kokopelli’s mountain bike trail.
Spanish Peaks Wilderness Area: A 20-year battle to secure protection for 18,000 acres encompassing the Forest Service’s Spanish Peaks near Trinidad finally ended with passage of a bill designating the Twin Peaks as wilderness (the easternmost peaks of the entire Rocky Mountains).
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument: Clinton’s 164,000-acre National Monument proclamation for extreme southwest Colorado takes in the densest concentration of Anasazi Indian ruins in America.
1999: CEC helps achieve victory on the ballot initiative to provide funding for light rail in the Denver metro area.
CEC starts reactivating and building support for the Citizens' Wilderness Proposal for Colorado's BLM lands, which was embodied in federal legislation introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette in February 1999 (HR 829). The Coalition becomes a founding member of the Colorado Wilderness Network, a coalition of more than 200 local governments, businesses, and conservation, recreation, senior, and religious organizations that endorse the Citizens' Wilderness Proposal.
1998: CEC's volunteers, staff and partner organizations run a successful voter education and get out the vote campaign to help pass a ballot initiative (and defeat a competing initiative) to protect Colorado's air and water from corporate hog farms.
1997-98: CEC works collaboratively with grassroots citizen groups to mitigate sprawling development, protect open spaces, and activate the public on environmentally damaging projects like the Vail Category III ski area expansion.
1996: CEC helps secure federal funding to extend light rail in metro Denver.
CEC celebrates ten successful years of defeating destructive forest projects through the TimberWatch program. Together, Coalition staff, volunteer activists, and local groups stopped timber sales at Bowen Gulch, Deep Creek, Castle Creek, and Grasshopper, to name just a few!
CEC releases the Colorado Environmental Handbook. This report on the state of our state explores 14 environmental issues affecting Colorado and gives citizens tools to take action and protect their state.
1995: CEC helps place the Denver area at the forefront of metropolitan planning by spearheading the adoption of an Urban Growth Boundary by the Denver Regional Council of Governments. CEC also helps ensure that the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission caps levels of harmful air emissions.
CEC lends expertise to local groups and helps block the proposed Deep Creek gravel quarry.
1994: CEC leads the newly created Sustainable Transportation Coalition in building a broad statewide coalition in support of clean air, alternative transportation methods, and limits on sprawl.
CEC publishes the Citizens' Wilderness Proposal, recommending wilderness protection for 1.4 million acres of BLM lands, and coordinates 46 other groups supporting the proposal.
1993: After a decade-long struggle, the Coalition helps pass the1993 Colorado Wilderness Act. The Coalition's organizing efforts contribute to protecting nearly 650,000 acres, including areas left out of the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Act, like the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness.
1990: CEC organizes activists to help defeat industry proposals and pass a strong Colorado Clean Air Act.
1991: The Conservationist Wilderness Proposal calls for protecting nearly 1.5 million acres of forest and BLM lands.
Years of intense citizen education and organizing pay off when the Coalition helps halt construction of the Two Forks Dam and Reservoir on a wild stretch of the South Platte River.
1989: To ensure the protection of Colorado's canyon lands, CEC begins monitoring all BLM proposals to lease potential wilderness areas and other lands for oil and gas development.
1988: CEC receives the American Rivers Conservation Colleague Award for its river protection work in Colorado.
1986: CEC begins the TimberWatch program to train local citizens to monitor and review Colorado timber sale activities.
1985: CEC helps score a tremendous river protection victory for Colorado when 76 miles of the Cache La Poudre River are designated "Wild and Scenic."
1982: CEC, working with a national alliance of conservation groups, helps turn back Interior Secretary James Watt's attempts to lease wilderness areas for oil and gas drilling.
1980: Conservationists statewide celebrate the signing of the 1980 Colorado Wilderness Bill, which permanently protected more than 1.4 million acres of primarily National Forest lands, including the Holy Cross, Lizard Head, and Mount Evans Wilderness Areas. The Coalition begins working to protect more than one million acres of unprotected Colorado canyon lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
1976: Coloradans win a ten-year battle when the 133,000-acre Eagle's Nest Wilderness Area is designated by Congress.
1977: CEC re-enters the battle for clean air in Colorado by fighting the delay of auto emission standards and industry attempts to weaken the protection of air quality in national parks and wilderness areas.
1975: CEC's work leads to Congressional designation of 235,000 acres of wild lands as the Flat Tops Wilderness Area.
1974: CEC wins a victory when Congress approves the establishment of the 405,000-acre Weminuche Wilderness Area.
1972: CEC conducts citizen workshops in conjunction with the Roadless Area Review of federal lands. Citizen workshops, training and organizing become hallmarks of the Coalition's efforts to designate 4.5 million acres of Colorado wilderness.
1970: Recognizing the harmful environmental impacts of the expanding oil shale industry, the Coalition fights for clean energy development during the 1970s.
1969: CEC begins one of the first battles to give long-term protection to Colorado's wild places by proposing that 422,000 acres be designated as the Weminuche Wilderness.
1968: CEC kills the proposed Red Buffalo Pass route for I-70 that would have cut across the future Eagle's Nest Wilderness Area.
1967: CEC is presented with the Clean Air Award by the City and County of Denver.
1965: Colorado Open Space Coordinating Council (COSCC) forms as a coalition of 16 organizations committed to monitoring and protecting Colorado's resources. "Coordinating" is later dropped from the name, and in 1984 it changes to Colorado Environmental Coalition.
