Phil Weiser's stance on climate action as governor

Attorney general speaks vigorously. He has demonstrated his ability to sue the Trump administration. What else could Colorado expect if he is elected?

Phil Weiser spoke at a Colorado Climate Week forum on Wednesday, April 1, at the Limelight hotel in Boulder. A few minutes before, rain had arrived. After Colorado’s heat and drought of recent months, it nearly qualified as a deluge. It did leave the pavement wet for a few hours.

Weiser, Colorado’s attorney general since 2019, is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. He secured 90% of delegate votes at the Democratic State Convention in Pueblo on March 28. That will put his name first on the ballot in the June 30 primary election.

In Boulder, Weiser, 57, was asked to describe his approach to Colorado’s work on climate change if he is elected governor. He speaks vigorously and shared various ideas but kept returning to his record as attorney general in pushing back against the Trump administration. He had, as of Friday, sued the Trump administration 64 times.

“I believe it’s a very good time to have a seasoned lawyer who’s not afraid to fight as governor, given what we’re up against,” he said.

In his remarks at the hotel on the edge of the University of Colorado campus, he led with a joke about being the dean of a law school, as he once was at the University of Colorado, drawing some laughter from the 250 or so people crowded into the room. He wrapped up his session talking about his mother and grandmothers, immigrants and survivors of the Nazi Holocaust.

Big Pivots has modestly condensed and, in some cases, clarified his remarks. Editor’s notes are in italics.

Is there anything you’d like to kick us off with today? Are you going to jump right into questions?

This room will appreciate this. Being dean of the law school is probably better preparation for being governor than almost anything else, including being attorney general, which I think is the best preparation. In academia, the politics are so hard because the stakes are so small. Fred Kahn, who had been a dean at Cornell and had served in the Carter administration, said a dean to a faculty is like a hydrant to a dog.

Walk us through a little bit of what your platform is, maybe your top two or three priorities. How do you know if you’re being successful with those priorities?

Let me start with water. It is great that it’s raining. It’s terrifying that we just had the worst season for snowpack, possibly on record. What that means for this summer, with respect to access to water, with respect to wildfires, should catalyze us to action.

Over the last eight years I’ve been calling for vigilance and investment and innovation in water. Sadly, not enough people took that call seriously. We had a lot of one-time money in Colorado that we could have put into water infrastructure, updating dilapidated infrastructure.

Why don’t we cover more open ditches with solar panels in Colorado? Instead, the water is evaporating. We need to take water seriously like the precious resource it is. We need to make sure that we’re keeping it clean.

We need to make sure that lower basin states in the Colorado River are not proving the old adage that denial is not just a river in Egypt. They are growing alfalfa in Arizona and sending it to Saudi Arabia with Colorado River water.

(This report from 2024 says that practice has ended in Arizona. However, a 2025 report says groundwater in Arizona is being mined to grow alfalfa for export).

We’ll be successful if we are on a path of working together with innovation and collaboration to manage in a more-scarce water environment than we’ve ever had. That means all of us are working together on a range of changes, of how we conserve water together, how we make sure we’re reusing water, and how we make sure to have more adaptive storage and use.

What failure looks like is drying communities wholesale, like the San Luis Valley, and shipping the water to Douglas County to make a quick buck for some investors. That’s what failure looks like.

I have an in-depth plan on water. I’d invite you all look at Philforcolorado.com.

Let’s talk about energy. 10% of South Africa’s energy supply is from distributed solar. (It’s 3.9% in the United States). We need to embrace a solar-and-storage revolution. It is starting to happen, and we need to lead it here in Colorado.

The more storage is done on a distributed basis, the more we’re building resilience in the system and are less vulnerable to the (power) shutdowns that will become a feature of wildfire concerns. We also will have more innovation at the edge of the network and more competition.

One of the biggest issues is forest health. In California, a few years ago, they had forest fires. The carbon emitted from those forest fires was more than all the savings they got from their energy transition. If we don’t manage our forests well, it’s not only the threat to our insurance rates, to human health, the widespread destruction, but it’s also a carbon issue.

By contrast, if we act proactively and find dying trees, we can create biochar, which can be used for other applications that don’t emit carbon.

We have an opportunity ahead of us because of the climate challenges, and we can meet it with collaboration, innovation, in how we approach water, how we approach our forests, and how we approach energy. I want to talk about transportation too.

Go ahead.

We have an opportunity to continue to re-imagine and change the way people get from place to place. I give Gov. (Jared) Polis credit for helping move some of these efforts down the field with more multi-modal opportunities. We desperately need a governor who understands our state inside and out and has been working in the executive branch, has the executive abilities to get done what we need to get done, building the transportation infrastructure for our future in a sustainable way. This includes more housing density with transit-oriented development, so that we’re creating communities that are more livable where people won’t need to have cars.

More and more of our infrastructure needs to be for electric vehicles. There’s still lots more work to do in this transition.

Can we talk about the administration we’re up against? I’ve been talking offense, but we have to acknowledge how much defense we need as well. It is fun, just for a few minutes, to forget who the president is. But we can’t.

With Senator Bennet and I you will hear different philosophies. He did choose to vote for (confirmation of) Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

We’ve had multiple forums where he’s here with me and I would say, “How can you stand by your vote for someone like Brooke Rollins, who fired Forest Service firefighters?” I don’t think I’ve gotten a satisfying answer. Truly. I see Doug Burgum saying I want to sell off public lands or open up public lands to oil and gas drilling, and I am apoplectic because this administration’s environmental stewardship team is trying to destroy our environment, is trying to quicken climate change, and is trying to undermine the kind of things we’re doing here in Colorado.

That’s means there’s a lot of defense we’re playing, which is why I’ve sued this administration 63 times and counting. (Two days later, he filed the 64^th lawsuit).

Chris Wright, in what is nauseating to any scientist, has said climate change is not endangering human health. Let me just say this one more time. The Supreme Court in a case called Massachusetts vs. EPA concluded, as any reasonable person would, that climate change is a threat to human health, droughts, wildfires, variable weather patterns. It doesn’t seem like it would take a Ph.D. scientist to make this conclusion, but we currently have an administration seeking to undo that conclusion. We’re going to be suing about that in court.

Colorado is pushing ahead to close coal plants that are unreliable, expensive and dirty, including one in Craig. Chris Wright is seeking to keep that (unit) open, against our wishes. We’re taking them to court on that, too.

I mentioned Secretary Rollins firing Forest Service firefighters. We took her to court, and we won on that. We also are up against Sean Duffy, who’s trying to prevent us from getting access to EV infrastructure funding. We took him to court, and we won on that. There’s a solar-for-all program, one of many examples of this administration refusing to provide funding mandated by Congress. We’re in court on that issue. The Energy Department, Chris Wright again, tried to withhold over $600 million in research funding from Colorado on clean energy grants, including from CU. We took him to court on that as well.

In short, when you’re up against a bully trying to intimidate you — trying to say climate change is not real, we don’t care about diversity, and we want to marginalize immigrants or the LGBTQ community — my answer is simple. In Colorado, we lead with our values. I will always fight for them.

If you were to become governor, what are some of your strategies to find those pathways to working with Washington?

My first pathway, my first principle, is that we are a nation of laws, and we follow the law. When this administration breaks the law, I will stand up for what is right and fight for our rights. I believe it’s a very good time to have a seasoned lawyer who’s not afraid to fight as governor, given what we’re up against.

I also believe that when they’re following the law and when we can work together to solve problems, I am all in for that work.

To give an example of how fraught this is, I am working with the Department of Justice on an antitrust case against Google while I am challenging the corruption of the Justice Department in other antitrust settlements that were sweetheart deals for political friends. If you’re following the law, addressing issues in a reasonable way, I’m in. I’ll collaborate with you. But if you’re breaking the law and harming Colorado, I’m going to fight for its right.

Shifting gears back to some state-level energy and climate policy, one of our biggest challenges is between affordability, reliability and sustainability for both our grid and our energy infrastructure. Resources are not unlimited. How would you think about prioritizing them? What do you see as the greatest need?

This is a false dichotomy.

I offered you a vision of energy — cheap, accessible, distributed storage with solar. That’s the cheapest energy we’re going to get. That’s the most reliable, resilient energy we’re going to have. It’s the cleanest, most sustainable.

We know what the future can look like. We need to move toward that goal. There is currently one utility in Colorado that is 100% clean energy, Holy Cross Energy. (Holy Cross in 2025 was actually 85% clean energy). We have opportunities to be nationwide leaders and innovators in the clean energy economy.

I worked hard on Bill Ritter’s first campaign. I was a co-chair of his Innovation Council. He talked about this commitment to energy innovation and leading in Colorado on clean energy. He has a great recent op-ed talking about this.

We didn’t need a war in Iran to remind us how unreliable oil and gas prices are. For those thinking about electric vehicles, it’s a good reminder. We can control our energy destiny by making the smart, long-run choices.

As a potential governor, you need to work with our local municipalities across the state on a lot of these challenges. What are your philosophies and approaches?

I mentioned a few differentiators in this race. One is how I’ve approached the Trump administration, as opposed to how Senator Bennet has.

The second I’ve mentioned is when you think about who has worked at the state level, who knows our state inside and out? I’ve got that experience. Colorado’s has a strong local control culture, and if you want to be governor, you need to know how to work with local government and find ways to bring them along, knowing the range of tools that must be calibrated around accountability, around shared goals and around collaboration.

All vinegar and no honey — that’s not going to go great. What you need to figure out as a governor is, how do we create a coalition of the willing toward the future that we all need to get to.

And I faced that exact problem with this question of how to respond to the opioid crisis. I saw a source of possible revenue to respond to Big Pharma, who had acted lawlessly, irresponsibly, preying on people. I went after all these companies like Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family and brought that $900 million to Colorado.

The important test for my leadership was then, “How would we use those funds?” What I did was something important, which is I really showed up to listen to local leaders. And I said, “How do we work on this problem together?” And they said, “How about we have a system that doesn’t make us jump through all sorts of hoops and bureaucracy and take forever for us to get the money?” That’s a complaint they often have working with the state. And I said, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. 90% of the money is going to go the local and the regional level. We’re going to give you the money up front, and then after the fact, we’re going to report on how all the money has been spent to make sure it’s all addressing the opioid crisis. How do we make sure that it’s not back-filling existing budgets? And then we get together once a year and talk about strategies to address the opioid crisis together.”

This framework has been praised. Johns Hopkins (Bloomberg) School of Public Health called it the best in the nation. John Oliver called it the gold standard. And during the last two years, overdose deaths from opioids in Colorado have been down by 21%.

When we’re talking about siting infrastructure for wind energy, for example, or about transit-oriented development and public transit — we’ve got to bring all Colorado governments along. We’ve got to get people on the same page.

We can do it in Colorado. We are innovators, and I have the track record, I have the relationships, and I will be able to lead to do that as next governor.

What is a position in climate and energy that you currently hold that you think is actually not popular with your current supporters, and why do you hold this position?

Every year, I’ve gone to and helped to sponsor something called Joint Organization Leading Transition, or JOLTS. (This year June 18-19 at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction). Communities on the Western Slope are facing an energy transition and are working to protect themselves. Last year, I was there. A Republican county commissioner said to me: “How do we make sure that you are our next governor and not Michael Bennett, because you know us here in western Colorado, you show up. We know you care about us.”

Some of you here may say we should have a data center moratorium. That’s not my position. If there are going to be data centers built in Craig, Colorado (and they use clean energy, possibly geothermal, and have low water use and provide jobs and do not cause rates to go up) I would be for supporting data centers under those circumstances.

What do you see as some of your current values as part of your candidacy and philosophy?

In the conversation we’ve been having about energy, about water, about transportation, is that rural Colorado, for example, feels like they are not valued, they are not cared about, they are not listened to. One of my core values is, I care about all of Colorado, and I believe that all of us need all of us, and that the policies that will best serve Colorado will not pit some communities against other communities.

My second value is I believe deeply that we are problem-solvers and innovators. Many of you know me from my time at CU where I founded the Silicon Flatiron Center for Law, Technology and Innovation. I founded Startup Colorado, (and) Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network.

I believe the best solutions to these challenges are going to come with innovative ideas and problem solving. I know our challenges on water are formidable, our challenges on how we are redesigning our electric grid, reimagining transportation. These are hard, some would say wicked problems. We can, and we must, be national leaders. So innovation would be my second value.

My third value would be kindness and decency. There’s a lot of rising hate out there, a lot of people yelling at each other, marginalizing groups today. At the Supreme Court today, the president walked out and said, “America is stupid to say that immigrants who have kids get to be citizens.”

I have the exact opposite view. I am here as a first-generation American. My mom hates when I date her, but she’s not here, so don’t tell her she was born April 13, 1945, in a Nazi concentration camp. Five days later, U.S. Army soldiers liberated my mom and my grandmother, and they wanted to come to the United States of America, because they believed this is the land of freedom and opportunity for all. They were welcomed with kindness and decency. That’s the America I know and love. That’s the Colorado I know and love and that I’m going to lead as the next governor.