By Dan Elliott, The Associated Press Environmentalists and community activists asked Colorado regulators on Wednesday to stop issuing new oil and gas drilling permits until they rewrite the rules under a new law that makes public safety and the environment the state’s top priorities. Just a month after the law took effect, some activists told […]
Colorado Oil and Gas Association
Posted inEnergy, News, Politics and Government
Opponents of Colorado’s new oil and gas regulation law won’t try to repeal it — at least not this year
By Dan Elliott, The Associated Press Opponents of a new Colorado oil and gas law that puts public safety ahead of production said Thursday that they will not attempt to overturn it this year, but they may try in 2020. They had planned to ask voters in November 2019 to repeal and replace the law, […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment, Growth, Politics and Government
Colorado’s oil and gas battlefield (and campaign cash) is shifting to local elections
Gov. Jared Polis suggested Colorado’s “oil and gas wars … are over” when he signed sweeping new industry regulations into law this month. But really, the battlefield just shifted. The new law empowers counties and municipalities to exert more authority over oil and gas development, reversing the prior approach that gave the state preemptive control […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment, News, Politics and Government
Colorado oil and gas overhaul tips power toward local government. How that power is used will vary widely.
Before the city of Thornton adopted a new oil and gas ordinance, it got a letter from the state warning that it was overstepping its bounds. After the ordinance passed, the city was sued by the oil and gas industry. When Longmont adopted an ordinance that blocked oil and gas development in residential areas, it […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Politics and Government
What the landmark oil and gas bill really says — and its significance for Colorado
Gov. Jared Polis and the Democratic-led legislature are pushing forward a measure that could allow local governments to veto oil and gas drilling in their communities, add a litany of new rules and spark a wave of lawsuits. A provision in the legislation to raise the threshold for forced pooling of mineral rights would give […]
Posted inBusiness, Crime and Courts, Energy, Environment, Growth, News
Broomfield neighborhood sues to stop Colorado law that allows oil and gas under its homes to be drilled without consent
A group of Broomfield homeowners fighting oil and gas drilling in their neighborhood have filed a lawsuit in Denver federal district court arguing that the state’s “forced pooling” law violates the U.S. Constitution in at least four different ways. The lawsuit by residents of the Wildgrass subdivision is backed by Colorado Rising, the activist group […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, Health, News, Politics and Government
Emotional video from Proposition 112 backers features brother of man killed in Firestone explosion. The oil and gas industry says the two are unrelated.
Proposition 112 backers have released a new campaign video featuring the distraught brother of a man killed last year when a home exploded in Firestone. The explosion, blamed on a severed flowline from a nearby natural gas well, in part prompted the measure that would increase the distance between new oil and gas operations and […]
Posted inBusiness, Energy, Environment, News, Politics and Government
Boulder County fights with finesse — and an all-out assault — to stop drilling on public open space
It doesn’t look like much of a battlefield — cottonwood groves, a small reservoir and farm fields with traffic zipping through on Colorado 52 — but this 10-square-mile patch of ground is being fiercely fought over by Boulder County and oil and gas drillers. Both the county and Denver-based Crestone Peak Resources lay claim to […]