PSR Colorado

Guided by the values and expertise of medicine and public health, we work to protect human life from the gravest threats to health and survival.

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) national was founded in 1961 with the motto “Prevention is the only cure.” 

Focusing on threats inherent in climate change and toxic exposures, PSR Colorado, a chapter of PSR national, believes in prevention and works at the state and local levels to support policies that will protect the public and our precious environment.

Our members are health care and public health professionals, concerned scientists, parents and students, and impacted community members. We always base our work on reliable medical and scientific data and follow the principle of "do no harm".

Because PSR Colorado (PSRCO) advocates like you support us financially and join us in action to promote environmental health and climate justice, we are able to help advance a healthy, affordable energy future, free from fossil fuel dependence and exposure. 

Together, we recently won rigorous new 2035 Clean Heat Targets and are succeeding in holding state agencies accountable for enforcing oil and gas chemical disclosure laws. We are defending Colorado's gas stove labeling law in court, resisting residential fracking projects, promoting a phaseout of new fracking permits by 2030, and pushing back against Xcel Energy's attempts to bill consumers for unnecessary gas power plants, miles of new gas pipelines, and experimental nuclear reactors.

In response to PSRCO's advocacy and that of our supporters and allied groups, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) recently set new 2035 Clean Heat Targets requiring large investor-owned gas utilities like Xcel to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 41% (compared to 2015 levels) by 2035.  In this context, winning a new 41% emission reduction 2035 is serious progress indeed!

We are co-intervenors at the Public Utilities Commission's (PUC) XCEL's Gas Infrastructure Plan (GIP) where we are making sure Xcel's gas utility gets on track to meet current Clean Heat targets. Our testimony made the case for reducing GHG and hazardous air pollutant emissions by requiring Xcel to transition its customers from gas to non-pipeline alternatives (NPAs) including electric heat pumps and networked geothermal systems — especially for new large-scale real estate developments. 

In regard to the closure of coal plants, particularly Comanche 3 in Pueblo, we intervened at the PUC in the Xcel Just Transition Solicitation Electric Resource Plan (JTS) proceeding, testifying for incorporating health impacts and environmental justice into the definition of a Just Transition. We argued for protecting ratepayers from the potential economic burden of paying off stranded fossil fuel assets and potential cost overruns associated with hazardous emerging technologies including "small modular nuclear reactors" (SMRs), hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CSS) projects.

We continue our quest to warn visitors using the Rocky Mountain Greenway of potential exposures to plutonium and other radionuclides at the Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge. PSR members and allies worked successfully to get signage that will be a warning and not a welcome to those about to enter the Wildlife Refuge. This would mark the first time there would be any warning to those about to enter the Refuge regarding the presence of plutonium in the soil and the threat to one’s health that it poses.

 

We are supporting alternatives to a highway expansion project that would add lanes to lanes to Peña Blvd while refusing to invest in or even study improvements to the adjacent A-line train. And we are supporting the I-270 expansion alternative proposed by GreenLatinos and Earthjustice that would avoid highway expansion by investing in transit and tolling freight. 

We are defending Colorado's Gas Stove Labeling Law. PSRCO filed to intervene on the side of the State of Colorado in a lawsuit against the State by the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM). The label will advise consumers of the air quality implications of having an indoor gas stove and will link to a CDPHE webpage with information on the health impacts of gas fueled stoves.  

In partnership with PSR National, Sierra Club, and FracTracker, we are holding the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) and oil and gas operators accountable for complying with the 2022 law requiring disclosure of all chemicals (including “secret” chemical) used in “downhole” operations. The law  also requires notification of community stakeholders such as hospitals, schools, and fire departments. After our report "Oil & Gas Chemicals Still Secret in Colorado" came out in May 2025, reporting compliance went from 37% to 98%! And we are still working on community notification.  

We hope you will support us in continuing our work!