The elk weighed roughly 700 pounds.
It was a Sunday night, September 29, 2024, on U.S. Highway 85 near Castle Pines. A car hit the animal on one side of the road, launching it airborne. When it came down, it came down through the windshield of Victor Rodriguez's vehicle.
"The elk came from above and crashed directly through the windshield of my parents vehicle, stopping the car dead in its tracks, killing my dad instantly," his daughter, Mary Rodriguez, told the House Finance Committee last Monday. "The head and the neck of the animal was on top of my mother, pinning her down in her seat. All she could do is sit there helpless while her husband of 55 years lay lifeless next to her."
The room went quiet.
A Bill Built on Several Years of Groundwork
Rodriguez was testifying in support of SB26-141, the Wildlife Collision Prevention Act — a bill that, by most measures in that hearing room, seemed impossible to oppose. Sponsored by Rep. Julie McCluskie and Rep. Rick Taggart, it would create a new Collision Prevention Fund fed by an optional $5 fee tacked onto vehicle registrations, with 75% of the money flowing to wildlife crossing infrastructure and 25% going to the Wildlife Cash Fund for Colorado Parks and Wildlife conservation work.
The math behind the bill is compelling. Wildlife-vehicle collisions cost Colorado an estimated $321 million annually — which Rep. McCluskie described as the highest of any state in the West. Since 2010, those crashes have killed 48 Coloradans and injured more than 5,000. And that's only counting reported collisions: Taggart noted that the Colorado Department of Transportation estimates roughly 67% of wildlife crashes go unreported entirely. He knew this firsthand — two years ago, heading up Route 13 toward Craig at dawn, he hit a coyote he never even saw. Repair estimate: $12,000.
The bill builds on a foundation laid over the past several years, including the Colorado Wildlife Safe Passages Fund and the state's Bridge and Tunnel Enterprise, which has allowed CDOT to unlock federal matching dollars at a four-to-one ratio. Taggart rattled off four completed projects that illustrate the leverage: the I-25 Greenland Wildlife Overpass ($22 million), the US 160/Colorado 151 project at what's known as Elmore's Corner ($59 million), the I-70 Floyd Hill Genesee project (which pulled down a $100 million federal grant), and the US 287 Wildlife Movement Project ($47 million). "So every dollar that we can put into this is leveraged four to five times over by federal grants," Taggart said. "And we are now about to apply for $80 million of additional grant funding as a part of this particular program."
A Parade of Proof
The witness list read like a coalition-builder's dream: CDOT, the Department of Natural Resources, AAA Colorado, Western Resource Advocates, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, two county commissioners, Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, and a retired biomedical researcher turned citizen scientist from Jackson County.
The data they brought was consistent and striking. Emily Hadaway, testifying on behalf of CDOT, told the committee that since the I-25 Greenland Wildlife Overpass opened, wildlife-vehicle collisions on that corridor have been reduced by 91%. On Route 9 near Kremmling — a heavily traveled migration corridor where the Blue River runs alongside the highway — Taggart cited a 92% collision reduction following infrastructure installation. Brendan Witt of Western Resource Advocates stated that wildlife crossing measures can reduce collision risk by over 90%.
Skyler McKinley, representing AAA Colorado's 800,000 state members, offered the committee a data point that landed visibly. "I looked up the last time I testified in this chamber four years ago," he said. "Average wildlife collision repair costs in our data have doubled from around $5,000 to around $10,000. And that's just the vehicle. Cars have changed, repair costs have changed. What we do to protect drivers and their vehicles also needs to change."
Jake Chamberlain, a senior vice president at Frontier Bank in Lamar, offered testimony about the other bill before the committee — but his description of farmers trapped by bureaucratic deadlines underscored the same theme running through the whole hearing: the gap between what programs promise and what they actually deliver in practice.
Then Rep. Marshall Started Reading the Fine Print
For most of the hearing, opposition to SB26-141 seemed unthinkable. The witness panels had been relentlessly one-sided — no opposition witnesses appeared at any point. Every speaker praised the bill. Even Sen. Perry Will, the original Senate sponsor, dialed in remotely to offer support, describing the mechanism as "an opt in. You know, if you believe in it and you like it like I do, you can fund it."
That word — opt in — became the fault line.
Rep. Bob Marshall, a Republican on the Finance Committee, had been listening carefully. When his turn came, he didn't question the program's merits. He questioned the plumbing.
"We keep saying it's an opt in, but it's my understanding this is an opt out," Marshall said — flagging that the $5 fee, as structured, would be charged to all vehicle registrants unless they affirmatively chose to decline it. Multiple witnesses, including bill sponsors and the bill's Senate prime sponsor, had described it as opt-in. Marshall argued the characterization was simply wrong.
But that was only his first objection. He then opened the bill's own declaration language and read it aloud: the fee is described as "imposed by the enterprise to defray the cost" of projects it "provides as a service to the persons upon whom the fee is imposed" at "rates reasonably calculated based on the benefits received by those persons." Marshall pointed to a line in the fiscal note acknowledging that the fee provides no direct material benefit to payers — and argued that the bill's own legal framing therefore couldn't hold up.
Taggart pushed back, arguing that reduced insurance costs constitute an indirect material benefit. "The speaker spoke of the fact that from an insurance standpoint, this is causing Colorado taxpayers $1.2 billion a year," he said. "If that's not material, I don't know what is material."
Marshall wasn't persuaded. He suggested a gifts-grants-and-donations structure would accomplish the same goal without the definitional problems. Taggart countered that voluntary donations are inherently unreliable — "I don't think any of us can sit here and say we can depend upon, on an annual basis in gifts and grants, the dollars necessary to leverage and open those grant dollars from the federal government" — but that didn't move Marshall either.
Marshall also flagged a third concern: the bill adds 1.1 full-time equivalent employees in administrative overhead for a program that had previously been managed internally. "It sounds like a lot of overhead friction being added for additional structure where we didn't have it before," he said. Bill sponsors acknowledged the question but it was not resolved on the record.
"Calling Things Something That They're Really Not"
Rep. Ken DeGraaf, also a Republican, had his own skepticism — focused on the 75/25 funding split. DeGraaf noted that Keep Colorado Wild already brings in substantial annual revenue and questioned why 25% of this new fee was being diverted to the Wildlife Cash Fund rather than keeping the two programs cleanly separated. He also raised the specter of a budget sweep: could these funds get pulled into the general fund during a tight fiscal year? Taggart acknowledged he could never guarantee what future legislatures might do.
When closing statements came, Marshall delivered the sharpest critique of the morning — and made clear he understood exactly how his vote would look.
"Calling things something that they're really not is very problematic to me when we do these things," he said, "because when we get sloppy with wording and process, no matter how great this program is — and we've heard that's all we heard is how great and important this program is — that's great for the Transportation Committee, but I would hope the Finance Committee would take a little more view of what's this funding mechanism."
His no vote was joined by DeGraaf. Everyone else voted yes.
The final tally: 8-2, with Rep. Gonzalez excused.
A Quieter Bill, A Unanimous Vote
The second bill before the committee — HB26-1341 — generated none of the friction of SB26-141 and passed 10-0.
Sponsored by Rep. Dusty Johnson, it makes a narrow but consequential fix to the Colorado Agricultural Development Authority's beginning farmer loan program. Under current law, CADA must return unused tax-exempt bond allocations to CHAFA by September 15 each year. The problem, as CADA Director Jim Rubing explained, is that applications arrive in August and fall — after the deadline has effectively closed the window.
When that happens, beginning farmers who've already been approved for CADA financing are forced into a frustrating and expensive detour. Chamberlain described two recent cases from his own lending portfolio: "Both were fully approved by the bank and by CADA prior to the September 15 deadline. However, due to normal transaction timelines, neither deal could be closed before that date. As a result, both borrowers were forced to close using standard bank financing at higher interest rates as a temporary bridge. They then had to wait until the following year, when CA funding became available again to refinance into that program."
HB26-1341 moves the deadline from September 15 to November 15 — two months that, according to Rubing, would eliminate most of these forced bridge loans. He noted the date was developed in coordination with DOLA and rural bankers, and that no allocation would ever be lost since unused funds transfer to CHAFA regardless.
Rep. Anthony Hartsook asked whether November 15 was actually the optimal date. Rubing said it was the right balance — enough time to help more farmers, while still leaving room for DOLA to reallocate any unused funds before the calendar year closes. Chamberlain suggested even more flexibility would be welcome — ideally, holding allocated funds through year-end once a loan is fully approved — but supported the bill as written.
No one opposed it. Not even close.
What Happens Next — and Why It Matters
SB26-141 now heads to the House Appropriations Committee, where it will face scrutiny of the fiscal note before any floor vote. The legal questions Marshall raised — is this truly a fee, or is it functionally a donation dressed in enterprise clothing? — will likely resurface there, or in floor debate. His objections were pointed enough that they may attract attention from legislators who weren't in the room.
HB26-1341 advances to the Committee of the Whole for second reading before a final House floor vote, and if it passes the House, it will then go to the Senate.
The stakes on SB26-141 are significant and tangible. If the bill passes and the fee generates the projected $2 to $3 million annually, Colorado would have a reliable annual funding stream to apply for federal matching grants — potentially unlocking tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure spending that would otherwise sit unclaimed. Wildlife crossing structures with proven 90%-plus collision reduction rates would be built in priority corridors across the state.
For the families of people like Victor Rodriguez — killed on U.S. Highway 85 on an ordinary Sunday night — that infrastructure might mean everything. For the rest of Colorado's drivers, it would mean lower collision risk and, over time, lower insurance costs on roads that right now run straight through the middle of elk migration country with nothing but headlights and luck standing between a driver and a 700-pound animal.
If the bill dies — whether in Appropriations, on the floor, or in the Senate — the state's wildlife crossing program reverts to competing for one-time general fund appropriations that have already been depleted, with no reliable mechanism to unlock the federal matching dollars waiting on the other side.