EPA repealed endangerment finding ; 4 dead in plane crash near Steamboat as NTSB investigates; Request for youth gender affirming care is denied

Headlines Monday, Feb. 16, 2026

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    EPA repealed endangerment finding ; 4 dead in plane crash near Steamboat as NTSB investigates; Request for youth gender affirming care is denied KGNU News

EPA repealed endangerment finding

The Trump administration touted the repeal as the largest deregulatory action in American history, with no mention of the impacts of climate change. Chris Winter, an environmental attorney at CU Boulder, says this fits in with the administration’s larger agenda of fossil fuels dominance.

“What the federal government is doing is it’s doing things that favor the fossil fuel industry, and it’s at the expense of all of us—normal everyday people who are gonna suffer the effects,” said Winter.

He says we already feel those effects here in the Mountain West, especially with the dry winter we’re having… and it’s only getting worse.

“Drought and intense heat during the summers, increased wildfire risk, more smoke, and impacts on water supplies in the Colorado River Basin,” Winter said.

States like Colorado do have some options to regulate greenhouse gases at the state level, but it’s much easier when they can partner with the federal government.

This story was reported by Rocky Mountain Community Radio.

4 dead in plane crash near Steamboat as NTSB investigates

Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, said a small private plane crashed at midnight on Thursday last week at Emerald Mountain near Steamboat Springs. The Routt County sheriff’s office said there were four recovered casualties from the crash with no survivors. The sheriff’s office said they’re investigating the four deaths. The NTSB said that before the weekend, an investigator was on their way to the site of the crash and will investigate matters relating to the cause of the crash.

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Request for youth gender affirming care is denied

District Judge Ericka F. H. Englert denied a request that would have required Children’s Hospital Colorado to provide gender affirming care to people under the age of 18. According to the Colorado Sun, Various families of transgender kids challenged the lawsuit that suspended the care, and despite various findings in favor of the family, they did not receive the verdict they hoped for. The judge said the care would QUOTE  “…pose a grave danger to the public interest that is greater than the danger to plaintiffs.”

Despite the preliminary ruling, the lawsuit will continue. Currently, the suit is heading towards additional arguments and a final ruling, which could come in the upcoming months. 

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Boulder official cites cost, time as issues undergrounding Xcel powerlines 

A report from the Daily Camera this weekend says while Boulder officials are calling on Xcel Energy to focus more on wildfire hardening efforts that would curb power disruptions, the city is also taking note that costs and timing of procedures could hold up projects.

Undergrounding, or the moving of electric power lines underground, has become a main focus of city infrastructure pundits looking to harden Boulder from wildfires. The hyped interest in undergrounding comes from the power disruption that affected a large portion of the Front Range in December of 2025, including throughout Boulder. A letter from the city of Boulder from last month pushed Xcel to make “substantial” progress in wildfire hardening infrastructure projects like undergrounding.

With undergrounding being an effective solution in stopping downed powerlines from igniting wildfires, Lex Telischak, a senior electrical engineer with the city of Boulder, told the Daily Camera there are limits to how quickly they can put powerlines in the ground. The city has only finished three undergrounding projects since 2021, and all previous projects in North Boulder, 19th street and East Arapahoe Ave. have had price tags in the several millions of dollars. Officials say that the costs of the projects limit the scale the city can implement and assign these undergrounding projects, making a combination of powerline-centered mitigation tactics necessary to distribute the third of the city’s power still distributed by overhead powerlines.

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Winter Memorial

The Colorado legislature held a memorial on Friday for the late State Senator Faith Winter. For several hours, current and former lawmakers spoke in front of a joint session of the House and Senate. Many of them honored Winter’s work in the legislature, especially on women’s rights and the environment. Others reflected on their personal friendships with her. Members of Winter’s family also attended. Winter died in a car crash in November.

This story was reported by the Colorado Capitol News Alliance.

 

You can hear daily headlines on the Morning Magazine, KGNU’s weekday morning show, with coverage of local and regional public affairs and news with headlines and commentary. Click here to listen to full episodes of the Morning Magazine.

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