Denver Mayor Has Yet to Support Denver Smog Reductions

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is pushing for the planting of one million trees in the next 20 years. According to the Denver Post, the push aims to help reduce air pollution in Denver.

While it's great that Mayor Hickenlooper wants to plant trees to help reduce air pollution, it's unfortunate that the Mayor has yet to support proposed smog reductions for the Denver metro area. It's especially unfortunate given that the Mayor's Greenprint Denver plan calls for air pollution reductions.

It's even more unfortunate though, given that the oil and gas industry is opposing state efforts to reduce emissions of smog forming compounds from oil and gas wells north of Denver. While industry has launched opposition to a major smog reduction effort, Mayor Hickenlooper has yet to support smog reductions. Either he's squandering a major opportunity to reduce air pollution, or his commitment to reducing pollution is nothing more than hot air. Either way, the result will be more smog and more asthma for Denver.

All the planned tree plantings in the world won't do much to curb smog pollution in the coming years. Hopefully Mayor Hicklenlooper will support the proposed Denver smog reductions.