In a live, nationally televised address Wednesday night, President Donald Trump offered no detailed plan to lower housing, health care, or energy costs. Instead, he delivered a sweeping, often fantastical monologue, repeatedly blaming Joe Biden for an economy he called “dead” before his return to office. He claimed inflation had been “stopped,” prices were “falling rapidly,” and boasted of “more victories than any in history.” Affordability was invoked repeatedly – a reversal from Trump's earlier dismissal of rising costs as a hoax – even as his policies raise costs in Colorado.
That disconnect was on full display this week. As severe winds slammed Colorado's Front Range with 100-plus-mph gusts (Herald, Dec. 19) and historic floods devastated Western Washington, the Trump administration announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder (Herald, Dec. 19).
The irony is rich: as climate-driven disasters intensify, we are shuttering the very institutions that help communities predict, prepare for and survive them. La Plata County experienced this in October, when unprecedented rainfall from Tropical Storm Priscilla forced the evacuation of 390 homes at Vallecito and flooded more than 100 (Herald, Oct. 22).
NCAR employs more than 800 people and anchors Colorado's role as a global leader in weather forecasting and climate research, alongside NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratories. Its scientists develop the models relied upon by emergency managers nationwide. Gov. Jared Polis warned that dismantling NCAR would cost Colorado its competitive edge “against foreign powers and adversaries in the pursuit of scientific discovery.”
The attack fits a broader pattern. Trump has long dismissed climate change and climate science, and his administration has targeted institutions and programs tied to it – from NCAR to clean-energy research and transportation grants – even as extreme weather accelerates.
Colorado has also drawn Trump's ire for political reasons. He publicly demanded that the state free Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk serving a nine-year sentence for breaching election security equipment while chasing nonexistent voter fraud (Herald, Dec. 19). When state officials correctly noted that presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, Trump escalated, warning Colorado to “watch what happens.”
Retaliation followed. Even as Trump touted his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” as the solution to affordability, H.R. 1 has instead blown a $1 billion hole in Colorado's budget, with losses expected to exceed $3 billion annually by 2032.
This week, the administration canceled $109 million in transportation grants, on Dec. 1 ordered the renaming of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and in September announced plans to relocate Space Command from Colorado Springs to Alabama – explicitly citing Colorado's mail-in voting as “a big factor.”
In Southwest Colorado, the consequences are immediate and severe, according to state data (https://federalfunds.colorado.gov/federal-funding-cuts-to-colorado). La Plata County has lost $16.1 million in canceled grants, with another $4 million at risk – nearly $918 per resident. Montezuma County has already lost nearly $9 million (Journal, Dec. 18), with $1.9 million more at risk, stripping $1,372 from every person in a county of just 25,849.
Across the region, these losses are being felt through job losses, reduced services and stalled projects that communities had already planned and paid for.
Meanwhile, health insurance subsidies are being canceled, driving a 28% average premium increase and forcing 100,000 Coloradans off coverage. SNAP food assistance was frozen and restored, but funding has been reduced. Clean-energy programs have been cut even as households face an estimated $500 in higher electricity costs per year by 2035.
Colorado historically receives just 90 cents in federal investment for every dollar it pays in federal taxes. With $837 million in canceled federal grants and H.R. 1 blowing a $1 billion hole in the state budget, that already-poor return is further on the decline.
While Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper and Rep. Joe Neguse, whose district includes Boulder, are actively pushing back against these cuts, Colorado’s Congressional Republicans have not yet stood up to these latest attacks.
Trump’s actions read less like policy than punishment. Colorado voted for Kamala Harris, has a Democratic governor, attempted to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot, and saw U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions ruled unlawful by a Denver federal judge. So the administration targets our research institutions, cancels grants, relocates military assets and holds FEMA emergency funding hostage.
The extreme weather we faced this week previews our climate future. Dismantling the infrastructure that helps us survive it isn't governance. It’s retaliation, plain and simple. And Colorado is paying the price.
