Court Opinion

ID: 9789259
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:32:45.190425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:20.863812
License: Public Domain

Justice EID,
concurring in the judgment.
I join the result of the majority-that Summit County is without authority to enact its ordinance banning a certain mining technique-but not its rationale. The majority reasons that the ordinance is "impliedly preempted" by the Mined Land Reclamation Act. Under the majority's implied preemption analysis, the State of Colorado's interest must be "sufficiently dominant" in a field before it can prohibit a statutory county from acting. Maj. op. at 721. Yet this analysis, which was developed in the context of conflicts between state laws and those of home-rule municipalities, has no place in this case, which involves a statutory county. Unlike home-rule municipalities, statutory counties have no inherent sovereign authority and exist merely as a matter of convenience for carrying out the will of the state. Thus, the conflict here is between two state laws-one giving general land use authority to the county, and one specifically preventing the county from promulgating a mining reclamation standard. Such a conflict should not be resolved through preemption analysis, but rather through straightforward statutory interpretation, which, in my view, leads to the conclusion that Summit County is without authority to enact its ordinance. Because I believe the majority's implied preemption analysis is misguided, I respectfully concur only in its judgment.
Conflicts between laws promulgated by the State of Colorado and home-rule municipalities differ in a significant way from conflicts involving the laws of the state and statutory counties like Summit County. Whereas the former involves a conflict between the laws of two governments with sovereign authority (the state and the home-rule municipality), the latter involves the laws of only one sovereign (the state).
As we have explained, "ilo contrast to a home-rule municipality, which has certain inherent powers," Bd. of County Comm'rs, La Plate County v. Bowen/Edwards Assocs., Inc., 830 P.2d 1045, 1055 (Colo.1992), a statutory county is not an "independent governmental entity existing by reason of any inherent sovereign authority of its residents...." Bd. of County Comm'rs of Douglas County, Colo. v. Bainbridge, 929 P.2d 691, 699 (Colo.1996) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Instead, "it is a political subdivision of the state, existing *735only for the convenient administration of the state government, created to carry out the will of the state." Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Indeed, it has only the powers that are expressly granted to it by the General Assembly and the implied powers necessary to exercise those that are expressly delegated. Id.
In a case involving a statutory county, the question is whether a single sovereign authority-the State of Colorado-has given the county the authority to promulgate the particular law in question. The question is thus answered by an examination of the state statutes pertaining to the issue. To be more specific, at issue in this case is whether Summit County's ordinance is permissible under the authority of various land use statutes,1 or whether it is prohibited by the Mined Land Reclamation Act, § 34-82-109(6), CRS. (2008). The case is therefore resolved through straightforward statutory interpretation.
The majority's fundamental error in this case is to apply the preemption analysis we have developed in the home-rule context. The majority relies heavily upon our decision in Voss v. Lundvall Bros., Inc., 830 P.2d 1061, 1068 (Colo.1992), in which we held that "the state's interest in efficient oil and gas development and production throughout the state, as manifested in the Oil and Gas Conservation Act, is sufficiently dominant to override a home-rule city's imposition of a total ban on [drilling]." We observed that the Home-Rule Amendment, Colo. Const. art. XX, § 6, grants to home-rule cities "every power possessed by the General Assembly as to local and municipal matters...." Id. at 1064 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). However, because the state's interest in oil and gas development was "sufficiently dominant," the matter was not one of purely local concern and therefore could properly be regulated by the state. Id. at 1066-69.
In a case such as Voss, it is proper for this court to consider which sovereign authority-the state or home-rule municipality-can properly regulate in a given area. Yet this inquiry, which draws from federal caselaw considering conflicts between federal and state laws, maj. op. at 728-24, has no place here, because Summit County has no inherent sovereign authority. Whatever authority it does have comes directly from what the state has given it. In other words, the starting point of any analysis of a potential conflict between a state statute and a county ordinance is whether, and to what extent, the state has permitted the county to regulate. Again, straightforward tools of statutory construction resolve the issue.
My difference with the majority's analysis is more than a technical legal point. By applying the implied preemption analysis of Voss, the majority requires the state to prove that it has a "sufficiently dominant" interest in an area before its regulations may trump a county ordinance. In doing so, the majority potentially undermines the state's authority to set public policy.
To be sure, our caselaw has not drawn a clear distinction between the analysis to be applied to home-rule laws that potentially conflict with state laws and county laws that do so. In Bowen/Edwards, for example, while we noted that statutory counties have no sovereign authority and exist for the convenient administration of state government, 830 P.2d at 1055-57, we went on to employ a preemption analysis similar to the one employed in Voss. Id. at 1057-60. Yet, as the majority seems to recognize, maj. op. at 723-24, we substantially corrected this error three years later in Bainbridge, where we applied the ordinary rules of statutory construction to resolve a conflict between a state statute and a county ordinance. 929 P.2d at 698-99.2 In that case, we were faced with a potential conflict between a county's general land use authority delegated by state statute *736on the one had, and a state statute that specifically addressed the particular issue in the case (exaction of a fee on developers to benefit school districts) on the other. In resolving the case, we relied on the principle of statutory construction that a specific statute prevails over a general statute, and held that the counties had no authority to impose higher fees than the statute permitted. JI d. at 698-99, 705.
We should take the opportunity today to reaffirm Bainbridge's approach that such conflicts are subject to statutory interpretation, not preemption analysis applicable to home-rule cities. Id. at 706. The fact that the parties may have argued the case in preemption terms does not mean that we should employ that analysis where it would be improper to do so. Cf. maj. op. at 728 (noting that because "(alll ... briefs in this case assert the applicability of preemption analysis ... we turn to our preemption case law ...").
Using a straightforward statutory analysis as set forth by Bainbridge, I would hold that Summit County has no authority to enact its ordinance banning a particular mining technique because the ordinance is a "reclamation standar{d] different than [that] established" by the Mined Land Reclamation Board, § 34-32-106(6), which has permitted the technique under "heavily regulated conditions." Maj. op. at 727. The term "reclamation" is defined as "the employment during and after a mining operation of procedures reasonably designed to minimize as much as practicable the disruption from the mining operation | ...." § 34-32-108(13), CRS. (2008) (emphasis added). I would reject Summit County's argument, adopted by the court of appeals, that the ordinance cannot be a reclamation standard because it prevents a mining technique from occurring in the first place, rather than regulating it "during and after" mining operations occur. The entire point of the ordinance is to ban the mining technique in its entirety-before, during, and after mining operations occur. The ordinance therefore acts as the ultimate ree-lamation standard.3
Under Bainbridge, the state's specific regulation of mining reclamation standards trumps the more general land use authority delegated to the county under general land use statutes. The County therefore has no authority to enact its ordinance. While the majority arrives at the same conclusion, it does so under an improper implied preemption analysis. I therefore concur only with the judgment it reaches.
I am authorized to state that JUSTICE COATS joins in this concurrence.

. The Colorado Local Government Land Use Control Enabling Act, §§ 29-20-101 to -108, C.R.S. (2008), the Colorado County Planning Code, §§ 30-28-101 to -139, C.R.S. (2008), and the Areas and Activities of State Interest Act, §§ 24-65.1-101 to -502, C.R.S. (2008).

. Indeed, we used preemption analysis only in the context of "disapprov[ing] ... the district courts' determination that the state legislature has acted to preempt the field of school finance." Bainbridge, 929 P.2d at 708.

. Unlike the majority, maj. op. at 726, I would find there to be no need to defer to the Board's interpretation of the statutory provisions at issue.