High school chemistry might have inspired you to prank mom by asking her for some “dihydrogen monoxide” at dinner. Of course, you were deflated when she brought you a glass of water without even arching an eyebrow; she had taken chemistry in high school, too.

And that’s the most the authors of House Bill 26-1121 can hope for if their pointless, yet costly, bill makes it through the wringer at the state Capitol this legislative session. It would require businesses to post online “what pollutants and discharges are emitted into the air” from their operations — even though it’s of little interest or use to the general public.

Those “pollutants,” though seemingly sinister by their chemical names, are in fact harmless in the form and concentration in which they are released. They also are reported by law to the state and duly catalogued as public records.

Democratic Reps. Bob Marshall of Highlands Ranch and Lorena Garcia of Adams County might think they’re performing a service to society by requiring that information to be posted on companies’ own websites. But the bill really only would heap another time-consuming, duplicative regulation on Colorado’s overregulated job creators by requiring the redundant disclosure of obscure information that’s of no practical value.

Maybe the hard-line environmental activists supporting the bill hope much of the public won’t be as savvy as mom and will mistake the mandated display of scary-sounding compounds for some sort of surgeon general’s warning. A scarlet letter, perhaps. That’ll teach those polluters! 

Or, maybe the bill sponsors just like making the state’s employers jump through extra hoops.

Yet, if the businesses fail to comply, the fine for each violation is $47,357 — per day. Another cash cow for the state and another gut punch for the business community. Another regulatory tripwire for no discernible purpose since state regulators already have the information

As the American Petroleum Institute-Colorado’s Carly West told The Colorado Chamber of Commerce’s news service, ours is one of only two states to be recognized as an “A-lister” by a global ratings organization for the state’s data transparency in environmental reporting.

“If the state and outside organizations are bragging about what a great job we are doing on environmental reporting and transparency,” she said, “it really begs the question of what problem we are trying to solve here.”

The salt in the wound with a measure like HB 26-1121 is it represents the 1,001st cut in what is a death by a thousand cuts, dealt to Colorado’s economy by ruling legislative Democrats. 

A Common Sense Institute report in 2023 found that a host of mandates imposed on the private sector through legislation and ballot proposals was costing our state’s economy about $2 billion a year. That was over two years ago. The cost of excessive regulation only has risen since.

Yet again Coloradans finds themselves at the mercy of a legislature that cannot resist the urge to regulate just about anything that moves, as always, in the name of public welfare.

And, once again, we find ourselves calling upon Gov. Jared Polis to prepare his veto pen for the sake of the economy — on which the entire public’s welfare depends.