Colorado: Veiga

In what is expected to be the last major fight in the legislature over Colorado's proposed new rules for oil and gas drilling, the state Senate gave initial approval today to the controversial regulations.

The vote, which broke along party lines, came after Republicans made an unsuccessful, last-ditch effort to sway moderate Democrats to make some changes to the rules, which are designed to protect the environment and public health from drilling side-effects. The Republicans hoped to increase certain protections for drinking water and to raise fines for some rules violations in exchange for stripping out a number of regulations.

Democrats summarily rejected the change, and, afterward, Republicans conceded the fight in the legislature is basically over.

9NEWS, from last night's broadcast:

"The comments make me sad," President Pro Tem Sen. Betty Boyd (D-Lakewood) said. "They were very hurtful to a lot of people, particularly when you talk about a woman who might be infected with HIV to give birth to a child who would have AIDS when they were born. That was, I thought, appalling."

The Schultheis firestorm came just two days after Sen. Scott Renfroe (R-Greeley) made a comment that some have interpreted as comparing homosexuality to murder during a debate over a bill to extend state health care benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian state employees.

A prominent national gay rights organization on Tuesday blasted Colorado state Sen. Scott Renfroe for comparing homosexuality to murder when he spoke Monday against a bill that would extend health benefits to same-sex domestic partners of state employees.

After quoting Scripture to call homosexual behavior a “detestable act,” the Greeley Republican said it would be “an abomination according to Scripture” for the Legislature to “(take) sins and (make) them to be legally OK.”

He continued:

I’m not saying (homosexuality) is the only sin that is out there. Obviously we have sin — we have murder, we have, we have all sorts of sin, we have adultery, and we don’t make laws making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal.

Sen. Jennifer Veiga has a confession to make: She used plastic grocery bags.

But when a group of students recently asked her to carry a bill banning the bags, the Denver Democrat switched to canvas sacks. Veiga now believes it's only a matter of time before plastic bags are outlawed.

Her attempt to do that this year failed, however, when six Democrats joined with Republicans Tuesday to defeat Senate Bill 156, which would have required large retail stores to phase out plastic bags within three years.

Republicans argued that paper bags cause their own set of environmental problems and that certain stores should not be singled out.