“So many empty promises left to say”

In case you started your Memorial Day holiday early last week, you might have missed this interesting article over at The Denver Post.  Business leaders from across various sectors of the Colorado economy penned a letter to failed Colorado leader Gov. John Hickenlooper, basically stating they did not appreciate being jerked around by him.  Hickenlooper got most of Colorado businesses to buy-in with him early on in his administration through his quirky personality, his small business experience, and his own version of starving the beast—if businesses are proactive in regulating themselves, the anti-business Left will have nothing to complain about.  But, as reality has set in, businesses are more aware of the extreme Left’s “if you give a mouse a cookie” attitude than the rational actors—who could balance their own extreme views with a healthy Colorado economy— Hickenlooper presented them as.  As The Post reports:

Business groups representing homebuilders, agriculture and oil and gas on Thursday rebuffed Gov. John Hickenlooper’s efforts at compromise legislation for local control of oil and gas drilling.

“We are surprised and dismayed by the haste in which you and your team are departing from more than six years of rigorous rule-making,” Colorado Petroleum Association president Stan Dempsey wrote to the governor.

The governor also received a critical letter signed by seven groups, including the Colorado Association of Homebuilders, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association and the Colorado Farm Bureau.

“We are extremely concerned legislation that is not in the best interests of our organizations and industries could be introduced,” said the letter, which also was signed by the Colorado Dairy Farmers, the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers and regional political advocacy groups Action 22 and Progressive 15. [the Peak emphasis]

The $29 billion oil and gas industry has particularly worked in good-faith with Hickenlooper, only for him now to turn around and sell them out.  Hickenlooper’s weak-spine leadership shows Colorado businesses that even if they compromise and meet halfway, Hickenlooper is too passive to protect them from extreme activists demanding more.  Even with the most stringent regulations of fracking in the nation, eco-extremists will not be satisfied until fracking is completely banned in Colorado.  For the sake of 93,000 good-paying Colorado oil and gas jobs, and countless others in industries under threat from the far Left, it is time for Colorado businesses to wake-up to the dangers of Hickenlooper’s failed leadership, and elect a new Governor who isn’t afraid to lead.  Colorado businesses can’t afford not to.