AG Weiser testimony: Before the House Committee on Transportation, Housing & Local Govt. on HB24-1235 to Reduce Aviation Impacts on Communities (March 6, 2024)

Thank you for this opportunity to testify today in favor of House Bill 24-1235.  I’m very grateful to Representatives Brown and Bird for bringing this bill and for responding to the needs of their communities.

Last October, Boulder County residents invited me to come to their community to listen to concerns about the impacts to their homes and health from aviation noise and leaded fuel.  Senate President Steve Fenberg and Representatives Brown, Dixon, and Amabile joined as well.  Hearing from a crowd of hundreds from Boulder, Arapahoe, and other communities, I was deeply moved by what I heard—parents worried over how lead pollution can harm their infant baby’s health; a woman anguished at incessant flight noise preventing her from ever using her yard; and families fearful to allow their children to play in their backyards or school playgrounds given flights spewing leaded fuel emissions overhead.
What I heard in this town hall convinced me that this is a complex problem that must be addressed—both the incessant noise levels and the harmful lead in aviation fuel.  These issues are deeply impacting these residents and harming their quality of life.

Before I joined the community at that town hall meeting, I received a letter from the national aviation industry lobby groups warning me that any attempt by the State of Colorado to regulate aircraft flights, noise levels, or emissions would run afoul of federal law and be struck down in court.  Now, preemption is a topic that I’m sure you’ll hear a great deal on today.  And that’s a fair question to raise and debate.  But broadly worded statements warning of preemption, lacking details or analysis, are no excuse to not act.  We owe it to those impacted families not to shrug our shoulders and concede nothing can be done, but instead to leverage what tools we do have at our disposal as a State.

I’m quite familiar with the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  But the federal preemption doctrine isn’t so simple as to say that the State of Colorado cannot and should not do anything that falls under the broad umbrella term of “aviation.”  To the contrary, there are actions we can take as a state and actions that local governments that own airports can take; to that end, I believe that this bill is thoughtfully crafted to ensure its provisions are defensible.  And I know and expect that the rigor of the legislative process will reveal ways in which this bill can be further refined to be made more defensible.

To be sure, under federal preemption grounds, states cannot impose flight curfews—and this bill does not do that.  Moreover, states cannot regulate aircraft noise levels—and this bill does not do that either.  And, finally, states cannot regulate flight patterns—and again, this bill does not do that.

As you will note in the bill, HB 24-1235 is deliberately crafted not to regulate, but rather to deploy our State’s tools to incentivize (and disincentivize) certain behaviors and operations.  Colorado may be unable to regulate flight patterns, but we can use state funds to reward airports that choose to have effective noise plans in place that are approved by the federal government.  Colorado may be unable to mandate that aircraft transition to safer unleaded fuel, but we can create funding incentives to encourage that transition (and on that topic, I heard from airports that are finding ways to provide that incentive themselves and requested state assistance in that regard).  Similarly, Colorado may be unable to impose flight curfews to restrict after-hours noise, but we can ensure that communities impacted by that noise have a voice and seat on state boards that administer state grants to airports.  This bill does that and more.

In short, there is no federal impediment for local airports to take advantage of the incentives that HB 24-1235 offers to make a safe and responsible transition to safer fuel and a better quality of life for aviation-impacted residents.  Nonetheless, I recognize that federal preemption is a topic on which reasonable people can disagree.  And it is possible, and perhaps likely, that some portions of this bill may be challenged as unconstitutional—including by national lobby groups.  For present purposes, however, I want to reiterate that the conversations that led to this bill were thoughtful and reflective ones, and, if necessary, I am prepared to defend this bill in court.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

See original post here.  See details on HB24-1235 here.