Earmarks for Colorado are back.
The three full-year appropriations bills that were included in the deal to reopen the federal government included just over $34 million for Colorado-specific projects requested by lawmakers.
The asks were part of the Military Construction bill and the Agriculture-Rural Development-FDA bill.
GOP Rep. Jeff Hurd, who voted for the deal, got $450,000 for a transportation services project for veterans operated by the Spanish Peaks Regional Health Center in Walsenburg.
“The current buses at Spanish Peaks are breaking down, lack air conditioning in 100-degree heat, and have unreliable mobility lifts that pose safety risks. This funding will provide vital access to care and restore deserved independence for the veterans who call this facility home,” Hurd said in a statement.
Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper also made the request for that funding in their chamber, but did not vote for the package.
In fact, none of the Colorado Democrats whose community funding requests made it into the package voted for the bill when it came before them.
The biggest single Colorado earmark is $22 million to replace an Ambulatory Care Center at Fort Carson, requested by Bennet and Hickenlooper through the military construction budget bill.
The rest of the earmarks for Colorado — just over $12 million — comes from USDA’s Rural Housing Service or Rural Utilities Services funding.
Colorado’s two senators got almost $1.2 million in federal funds for construction of a new police station in Fairplay, $1 million to develop the Wellington Community Services Center to provide food, health and human services in Larimer County, and just over $500,000 for a regional fire training tower in Teller County.
Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse got four earmarks in the Agriculture appropriations bill, while Democratic Rep. Brittany Pettersen got five.
Neguse’s included $1 million for a construction of a wastewater treatment facility in Hot Sulphur Springs and just over $1 million for the construction of a new interagency fire center in Eagle County. It was only part of what he asked for, though; his original funding requests for those projects were $3 million and $5 million, respectively.
Pettersen got just over $1 million for construction of a new Boys & Girls Club facility in Chaffee County, just shy of the original, almost $1.3 million ask. She also got over $1 million of a $1.3 million request for the construction of a new childcare facility in Cripple Creek.
A bicameral ask from Neguse, Bennet and Hickenlooper for construction of a police department facility in Estes Park got $1 million of the $4.3 million sought. While a bicameral ask from Pettersen, Bennet and Hickenlooper netted $1 million, about half the original request, for a modular childcare facility in Lake County.
All of Colorado’s lawmakers have earmark requests in other appropriations bills that have not yet passed Congress.
This was a positive step for lawmakers and the requestors compared to the last fiscal year. Those requests never went anywhere because Congress did not pass a full-year budget for the 2025 fiscal year, but instead went with a full-year Continuing Resolution that left earmarks behind.
