Like labels on cigarettes, opponents say fossil fuel warnings could change attitudes. Others call it gasoline “shaming.”

This story was originally published by Capital and Main.

The Centennial State may become first in the nation to require retailers to warn consumers that burning fossil fuels “releases air pollutants and greenhouse gases, known by the state of Colorado to be linked to significant health impacts and global heating.”

The warning is the linchpin of a bill — HB25-1277 — that narrowly passed the state House on April 2 and is scheduled to be heard in the Senate’s Transportation & Energy Committee this week. Its Democratic sponsors say the bill will raise awareness among consumers that combusting gas in their vehicles creates pollutants that harm their health and trap heat in the atmosphere, leading to more intense and extreme weather, wildfires and drought.

The groundbreaking measure would require retailers to place warning labels printed in black ink on a white background in English and Spanish in no smaller than 16-point type on fuel pumps and “in a conspicuous location” near displays offering petroleum-based goods for sale. 

Proponents compare the stickers to warnings labels on cigarettes that scientific evidence found motivated consumers to reconsider the health impacts of smoking.

The labeling bill is backed by environmental groups, including 350 Colorado and the Sierra Club, and opposed by gas stations, chambers of commerce and energy trade associations. About 136 lobbyist registrations were filed with the secretary of state in the position of support, opposition, or monitoring — a benchmark of the measure’s divisiveness.

“The bill, as you’ve heard, seeks to drive systemic change and to help us meet our greenhouse gas emission goals,” state Rep. Junie Joseph (D-Boulder), a sponsor, testified at a House Energy & Environment Committee hearing on March 6. “Colorado is actively working to reduce emissions to comply with the Clean Air Act and state climate targets.”

Colorado is on track to meet greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 26 percent by 2025 and 50 percent by 2030, over 2005 levels — albeit a year late for each period mandated under state law, according to a November report compiled by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and the Colorado Energy Office.

Yet the state is woefully behind in its compliance with federal air quality standards. Emissions from energy industry operations and gas-powered vehicles are the main drivers of the nine-county metropolitan Denver region’s failure to clean up its air over the last two decades. The state’s largest cities rank among the 25 worst in the nation for lung-damaging ozone pollution.

Several days before the labeling bill passed the House, the state’s health department said it planned to ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to downgrade its air quality for the second time in a year. The request is intended to give regulators more time to draw up a plan to reduce pollutants that cause a toxic haze that blurs the Rocky Mountains from May to September.

Colorado repeatedly touts its “nation-leading” greenhouse gas emissions reduction laws targeting oil and gas production, as well as requirements that utilities transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Yet to make long-term progress toward a state mandate to cut emissions 100 percent by 2050, officials need residents to drive less and carpool and take public transit more. The bill’s sponsors cited a first-in-the-nation labeling law in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, as proof such initiatives work.

The Cambridge City Council enacted its greenhouse gas label law in 2020. City inspectors affix about 116 bright yellow stickers that read: “Warning. Burning Gasoline, Diesel and Ethanol has major consequences on human health and on the environment including contributing to climate change” in pump bays at 19 gas stations annually, along with inspection stickers, Jeremy Warnick, a city spokesman, wrote in an email.

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"Bringing the buffalo back is about our relationship with them, not domination over them."

Jason Baldes drove down a dusty, sagebrush highway earlier this month, pulling 11 young buffalo in a trailer up from Colorado to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. His blue truck has painted on the side a drawing of buffalo and a calf. As the executive director of the Wind River Buffalo Initiative and Eastern Shoshone tribal member, he’s helped grow the number of buffalo on the reservation for the last decade. The latest count: the Northern Arapaho tribe have 97 and the Eastern Shoshone have 118. 

“Tribes have an important role in restoring buffalo for food sovereignty, culture and nutrition, but also for overall bison recovery,” he said. 

The Eastern Shoshone this month voted to classify buffalo as wildlife instead of livestock as a way to treat them more like elk or deer rather than like cattle. Because the two tribes share the same landbase, the Northern Arapaho are expected to vote on the distinction as well. The vote indicates a growing interest to both restore buffalo on the landscape and challenge the relationship between animal and product. 

While climate change isn’t the main driver behind the push to restore buffalo wildlife status, the move could bring positive effects to the fight against global warming. Climate change is shrinking Wyoming’s glaciers, contributing to drought, and increasing wildfires. While buffalo might give off comparable emissions to cows, increasing biodiversity can promote drought resistance and some herds of buffalo have been shown to help the earth store more carbon. 

Like cows, buffalo emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, by belching, though it’s not clear if buffalo give off the same levels.

While buffalo can contribute to climate change, what they bring in increased biodiversity can promote drought resistance and some buffalo herds have been shown to help store carbon. 

The scale of cattle on the landscape and how they are managed contributes to climate change. Baldes argues buffalo should be able to roam on the plains to bolster biodiversity and restore ecological health of the landscape — but that has to come with a change in relationship. 

“Buffalo as wildlife allows the animals to exist on the landscape,” Baldes said. “Rather than livestock based on economic and Western paradigms.” 

Wildlife is broadly defined as all living organisms, like plants and animals that exist outside the direct control of humans. When it comes to how different states define wildlife, the definition can vary. But a good rule of thumb is animals that are not domesticated — as in selectively bred for human consumption or companionship — are typically classified as wildlife. 

“Bison have a complex history since their near extinction over 100 years ago,” said Lisa Shipley, a professor at Washington State University who studies management of wild ungulates which are large mammals with hooves that include buffalo.  Tribes and locals tend to say buffalo while scientists use bison to describe the animal. 

During the western expansion of settlers a combination of overhunting, habitat destruction, and government policy aimed at killing Indigenous peoples food supplies eradicated the animal from the landscape. 

Around eight million buffalo were in the United States in 1870 and then in the span of 20 years there were less than 500. Today, in North America there are roughly 20,000 wild plains bison — like the ones Baldes works to put on the Wind River. But most buffalo reside in privately owned operations, where many buffalo are raised for the growing bison meat industry. In 2023, around 85,000 bison were processed for meat consumption in the United States, compared to the 36 million head of cattle. It’s not a lot compared to cattle but some producers see buffalo as an interesting new addition to the global meat market. 

The numbers are similar for other kinds of wildlife — there are typically more livestock on the land than wildlife. According to one study, if all the livestock of the world were weighed, the livestock would be 30 times heavier than the weight of all the wildlife on the Earth.

Reducing the world’s collective reliance on cows — a popular variety of livestock — has been a way many see as a path forward to combating climate change. Eating less beef and dairy products can be good for the planet; cows account for around 10 percent of green house gas emissions.  And having too many cows on a small patch of pasture can have negative effects on the environment by causing soil erosion and affecting the amount of carbon the land can absorb.

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