NEDERLAND — The start of a new year brings the promise of many changes. Some individual pursuits are often dropped after the first few weeks of January, as a promise to yourself is often easier to make than it is to keep.

But there are other, more permanent changes.

Throughout the year, the Colorado General Assembly toiled as tenaciously as Santa’s elves to pass new legislation, with a total of 19 new state laws going into effect on January 1, 2026. 

Though many of the laws are set to directly affect the general population, there are many that will hit closer to home for those of us in the Peak to Peak area. 

Housing and health

HB 25-1030, sponsored by Representatives Junie Joseph and Rebekah Stewart and Senators Lisa Cutter and Faith Winter, sets new language to ensure that a municipality’s governing body is requiring its buildings to meet or exceed the standards of the most up-to-date adopted International Building Code, as well as to the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

HB 25-1002, sponsored by Representatives Kyle Brown and Lindsay Gilchrist and Senators Judy Amabile and Byron Pelton, specifies that health benefits coverage for behavioral, mental health, and substance use disorders has to be as extensive as coverage for physical illnesses.

In addition to carriers having to offer “meaningful benefits” for such disorders, the act also strictly prohibits health benefit plans from limiting coverage for such chronic disorders to “short-term symptom reduction,” and prohibits health insurance carriers from reversing any determinations regarding medical necessity, except in the case of fraud. 

HB 25-1236, sponsored by Representatives Mandy Lindsay and Yara Zokaie and Senators Mike Weissman and Iman Jodeh, amends the definition of a "portable tenant screening report,” removing the requirement that the tenant using a housing subsidy must provide a credit history report, a credit score, or an adverse credit history event as part of the screening report process.  

Also, language was repealed that allowed landlords to require an immediate screening report from a tenant through a third-party agency.

Guns

There are new gun show requirements, thanks to Representatives Joseph and Sean Camacho and Senators Cathy Kipp and Jessie Danielson. 

HB 25-1238 requires gun show promoters to submit a security plan for their event with local law enforcement, as well as requiring them to have liability insurance; have secure entrances and exits with adequate video surveillance, including of the parking lot; providing proof of each purchaser having complied with the three day waiting period; and prohibiting any person under the age of 18 from entering the gun show without a proper guardian.  

Any violation constitutes “unlawful gun show management,” a class 2 misdemeanor, and comes with a five-year penalty during which the promoter is prohibited from running gun shows.

This act also ensures that every gun show vendor must be a federal firearms licensee, must hold a valid state firearms dealer permit, must have successfully completed their gun show certification, and cannot have been previously convicted of a second offense of “unlawful gun show vendor activity.” 

Such unlawful activity by a gun show vendor is also considered a class 2 misdemeanor. 

Child care 

SB 25-004, sponsored by Representatives Lorena Garcia and Jenny Willford and Senators Janice Marchman and Faith Winter, requires that any type of application or deposit fee paid to a child care provider before enrollment is refundable after six months of paying the fee if, for whatever reason, the payee’s child is not enrolled into the program. 

“The prospective family must submit a written request to the child care program to receive a refund,” reads the official bill summary from the Colorado General Assembly. “Upon receiving the written request from the prospective family, the child care program shall refund the fees to the prospective family and may remove the prospective family from the wait list.”

Furthermore, if the child care center does not comply within 30 days after the date of an inspection process started by an official complaint, the Department of Early Childhood will be authorized to take further disciplinary action.

Bison hunting 

And last on this particular list, but certainly not least, is SB 25-053, sponsored by Representatives Joseph and Elizabeth Velasco and Senator Jessie Danielson. The bill officially classifies bison as “big game,” unless otherwise considered as livestock; doing so makes it illegal to hunt or take wild bison, unless authorized by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. 

Other clarification was given within the bill, including for privately owned cattle and for bison that are legally reduced to captivity, have escaped lawful captivity, or that are lawfully reduced to captivity by an Indian tribe, stating that the animals, under these conditions, are not to be defined as “wildlife.” 

“The fee for issuing a bison hunting license is set at $374.22 for a resident and $2,756.74 for a nonresident,” the bill reads. “The penalty for illegal possession of wild bison is a fine of not less than $1,000 and not more than $100,000, or imprisonment for not more than one year in the county jail, and an assessment of 20 license suspension points.

“The penalty for illegally killing or capturing a bison is a fine of $10,000. The value of a bison is set at $1,000 for the purposes of recovering the value of a bison that is illegally killed or captured.”