DENVER – And that’s a wrap.
Colorado legislators lowered the curtain on a dramatic session Wednesday, even if the real climax happened Monday night.
That’s when for a few hours, senators were threatening to blow up months of work on marijuana regulations and taxes. They introduced a new bill that would have asked voters to repeal retail marijuana sales if they didn’t approve high taxes. But the effort lasted only three hours before it fizzled and died.
The epilogue came Wednesday, when the Senate – with no fanfare – finally approved two bills to set up the regulatory structure for marijuana and ask voters for a tax on pot.
On a 25-10 vote, the Senate passed House Bill 1318, which puts a question on the November ballot to ask voters for two taxes on marijuana – an excise tax on wholesale sales and a retail sales tax, both of up to 15 percent.
And on a 32-3 vote, the Senate approved HB 1317, which sets state regulations for the way marijuana is grown, packaged and sold in retail stores. Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, voted for both bills.
The votes set the stage for retail marijuana sales to begin Jan. 1, 2014, but the chairman of the Legislature’s special marijuana committee, Rep. Dan Pabon, D-Denver, doesn’t expect a New Year’s Day bonanza.
“I think what you are going to see as a practical matter is most local jurisdictions are going to put a moratorium in place,” Pabon said. “I don’t think you’re going to see an explosion on Jan. 1.”
In the only other last-day drama, Democrats killed their own bill on natural-gas and oil fines after they couldn’t overcome lobbying by Gov. John Hickenlooper to make the bill stronger.
HB 1267 called for raising the maximum daily fine for spills to $15,000, up from $1,000 now. But Democrats also wanted a minimum fine of $5,000 a day for the worst violations.
They lowered the minimum to $2,500 a day Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to save the bill, but three Senate Democrats joined all Republicans in opposing the move.
Without the minimum fine, the bill is toothless, sponsors said.
“We’re not going to pass a bill that’s a paper tiger,” said the sponsor, Rep. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission routinely lowers fines even from today’s $1,000 maximum, so increasing the maximum fine would have been meaningless, Foote said.
He refused to bring the bill up for a vote in the House to agree with the Senate’s action, so the bill died.
jhanel@durangoherald.com
