Colorado Propane Training Requirements Under PEP — 2026 Guide

olorado law actually says

Colorado regulates LP-gas under the Division of Oil and Public Safety (OPS) within the Department of Labor and Employment — not the State Fire Marshal. The operative document is OPS's guidance "Understanding Colorado Propane Dispenser Operator Training Requirements" (published 2019, ops.colorado.gov).

That guidance sets out, for propane dispenser operators:

• Training must be completed before operating a propane dispenser;
• Training documentation must be kept for as long as the person is employed to dispense propane; and
• Training must be updated at least every three years and documented.

It then names two qualifying pathways, verbatim:

"Minimum training requirements for Colorado dispensing operators can be satisfied by certification through either the Certified Employee Training Program (CETP) 1.0 Basic Principles and Practices as published by PERC, or a training program containing at minimum certification by the PERC Dispensing Propane Safely program."

The plain-language read: this is administrative guidance, not statute, but it is the document Colorado dispenser operators are told to follow — and it names a specific CETP version (1.0 Basic Principles and Practices). That specificity is what makes Colorado's gap sharper than most: it is not a generic "complete CETP" reference that PEP could quietly slot into; it points at one named module that PERC is archiving.

PERC is archiving CETP module by module — each retires roughly 12 months after its PEP equivalent releases, with no single national cutoff and no PERC-published module-by-module calendar. CETP's "Basic Principles and Practices" content now lives in PEP, which is role-based and modular, issues a Learning Center transcript entry instead of a paper certificate, and replaces the proctored exam with module assessments plus employer-tracked OJT.

Colorado's 2019 guidance still points dispenser operators at "CETP 1.0 Basic Principles and Practices." PERC's position is that PEP carries that content forward equivalently — but Colorado OPS has not published a confirmation. So an operator reading the active state document sees CETP 1.0; the operator completing current PERC training is doing PEP; and no Colorado authority has bridged the two on paper. The second pathway in the guidance — PERC's Dispensing Propane Safely program — is the more durable reference, since it is named by program rather than CETP version.

1. Keep training your dispenser operators. The requirement (train before dispensing, update every 3 years, document) hasn't changed. PEP is the current PERC program that delivers that content.
2. Lean on the "Dispensing Propane Safely" pathway where it fits. Colorado's own guidance accepts PERC's Dispensing Propane Safely certification as a minimum — and that pathway is named by program, not by a CETP version number, so it is less exposed to the archival question.
3. Confirm equivalency with OPS before relying on a PEP-only record for a dispenser operator, given the guidance still names CETP 1.0 specifically.
4. Check your 3-year clock now. Operators last trained in 2022 are due in 2025. Don't let a refresher lapse while the documentation question is open.

• The completion date of each dispenser operator's training (anchors the 3-year refresher).
• The Learning Center transcript for PEP-trained operators — and which pathway it covers (Basic content vs. Dispensing Propane Safely).
• Any prior CETP 1.0 certificates — they remain valid records in the PERC Learning Center; keep them.
• A documented training-update record every three years, per the OPS guidance.
• OJT worksheets for hands-on verification — the Learning Center auto-tracks eLearning only.