2022 Legislative Agenda

Click on the bill titles below for a brief description, GBC position, and links to further information and opportunities for action as available. Additional bills, bill numbers and status will be updated as the bills are introduced and go through the legislative process.

GBC’s regulatory work follows the state bills.

For questions or concerns on any of these policies, or if you have a story to share, please email angelique@goodbusinessco.org.

💲 ECONOMY 💲

Headliner: SB22-234 Unemployment Compensation

The biggest boon for business to come out of this year's session was the Unemployment Compensation Bill, which passed on a bipartisan vote and put $600 billion American Recovery Plan Act dollars into the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund. This will significantly decrease the burden on businesses to replenish the fund with increased premiums after the pandemic exhausted it and required a $1 billion federal loan to cover historic numbers of unemployed Coloradans. Employers who pay premiums for workers without documents can also rest assured that these important community members will now be covered.

All the economic bills on our agenda passed on bipartisan votes, namely:

• HB22-1010 to establish and fund a tax credit created in 2019 to support the Early Childhood workforce but which never went into effect due to a bill drafting error.

• HB22-1149 to support certain high paying "advanced industries," particularly in rural and economically distressed areas through a tax credit;

• HB22-1332 to fix language from last year’s allocation of federal COVID recovery funds to rural economic relief;

• SB22-006 to increase the amount that small retailers are allowed to keep as a "vendor fee" for remitting sales tax; and

• SB22-032 to reduce the cost and complexity of sales and use tax.

🍃 ENVIRONMENT 🍃

Headliner: SB22-051 Policies to Reduce Emissions from Built Environment

SB22-051 reduces emissions through tax exemptions and rebates for electric heat pumps and decarbonizing construction materials for homes and buildings. "Building electrification" is an important component of the state's greenhouse gas reduction strategy as technology becomes available that reduces the long-term operating costs and emissions from heating and cooling systems for homes and businesses.

Other environment bills on our agenda that passed were:

• HB22-1249 to identify how microgrids can help overcome threats to electric grid resilience and reliability, enabling more renewable energy and helping rural communities reduce business disruptions;

• HB22-1345 to protect increasingly precious water resources, collective human health, and businesses that count on water quality, from contaminating "forever chemicals;"

• HB22-1355 to increase access to recycling services throughout the state of Colorado, whose recycling rate has stagnated at around 15% (half the national average) through an industry run Producer Responsibility Organization supported by dues from large producers.

HB22-1134 to reduce single use meal accessories like plastic utensils, napkins, and condiment packets died early when the sponsor pulled the bill because she did not have the votes. Also, as previously mentioned, SB22-138, a big picture bill that would have reinforced and built on Colorado's efforts to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals, was sacrificed at the end of session to stop the filibuster on other bills. SB22-138 included several provisions, including developing insurance premium considerations for climate change, studying carbon sequestration through agriculture, and promoting "agrivoltaics" (colocation of solar and agriculture), among others.

🩺 HEALTHCARE 🩺

Headliner: HB22-1269 Healthcare Sharing Plan Reporting Requirements

Healthcare sharing plans are often much less expensive than healthcare insurance, but unlike insurance, sharing plans are not regulated and have no obligation to pay their members’ bills. Though they may work for some people, many consumers including small business employers, believe they are getting health insurance for themselves and their employees at a low cost. Then, if something happens and the sharing plan is unwilling or unable to pay, they or their employees find themselves uninsured and facing huge medical bills. Reporting requirements provide some transparency into a healthcare sharing plan’s financials and other  program details, and some measure of accountability since bad actors can be more easily identified and kicked out of the state.

Our two other healthcare bills also passed:

• HB22-1133 to provide startup funding for the voter approved Paid Family and Medical Leave Program that Good Business Colorado played a key role in passing in 2020; and

• HB22-1370 to ensure more affordable and predictable costs for prescription medication.

🏠 HOUSING 🏠

Headliner: HB1287 Protections for Mobile Home Park Residents

Business owners in some Colorado cities and towns cannot find workers because housing is simply too expensive or unavailable in their areas, and many business owners struggle with housing costs themselves. HB22-1287 helps preserve the largest source of market rate housing available to lower income families - mobile homes. HB22-1287 brings needed protections to mobile home park residents so that mobile homes can continue as a viable housing strategy. It also gives park residents more time to organize and purchase their park as a resident owned community if the park comes up for sale and they choose to do so.

In 2021 the legislature created a task force which produced a package of recommendations on how to allocate federal COVID relief funds to address Colorado's deep housing crisis.

The following bipartisan housing bills on our agenda, which all passed, came out of those recommendations.

• HB22-1051 which builds on an existing tax credit that raises private sector equity to support developing and preserving affordable housing;

• HB22-1083 that increases support for organizations that serve people experiencing homelessness by expanding the range and uses for an existing tax credit;

• SB22-146 which expands on an existing Middle Income Access Program that provides financing for projects to serve renters with incomes between 80% and 120% of area median income;

• SB22-159 which creates a revolving loan fund to provide flexible, low-interest, and below-market rate funding for projects to create and preserve attainable housing, particularly in disproportionately impacted areas.

• SB22-160 which creates a revolving loan and grant program to help mobile home owners who want to organize their neighbors to purchase their mobile home parks and become a resident owned community.

We also supported HB22-1018, an electric and gas utility consumer protection bill which passed to improve living conditions for people struggling to afford housing in our state. 

🤝🏼 ANTI-DISCRIMINATION🤝🏼

Headliner: SB22-161 Wage Theft Employee Misclassification Enforcement

Employees who fail to pay for valuable work that they have already benefited from erode trust in the employer/employee relationship, put responsible employers at a great disadvantage, and steal hundreds of millions of dollars from workers and state and local governments each year in Colorado. Although wage theft is against the law in our state, it is still far too easy for bad actors to exploit vulnerable workers. Worse yet, wage theft disproportionately impacts people with language barriers or fears about being deported and separated from their families. SB22-161 will improve enforcement by; empowering the CDLE to facilitate collection of unpaid wages, authorizing the Attorney General to combat fraud and misclassification of employees, and streamlining private enforcement.

We supported two other anti-discrimination bills this year, and they both passed:

• HB22-1230 to help businesses navigate the labor shortage by providing people who want to work with emergency help for things that stand in the way of employment like a flat tire or last minute childcare;

• SB22-099 to automatically seal criminal records for certain types of offenses (that are already eligible for sealing by petition) if a certain amount of time has passed without a conviction.

And that's a wrap on the 2022 Legislative Session!