The state legislature is expected to consider the recommendations from Gov. Hickenlooper’s oil and gas task force before they adjourn next month, but out-of-state activists are already calling the panels work a failure.
The Union of Concerned Scientists based in Massachusetts says Coloradans got a “bad deal” because there were no scientists on the panel, and that communities should provide the scientific input to determine if fracking should be allowed.
It didn’t make sense to us either, but it’s the kind of reasoning we’ve come to expect from controversial environmental groups like this one, which formed in the ‘60s to protest the Vietnam War with the likes of Noam Chomsky and the leader of the terrorist group Weather Underground.
The union of scientists says they know what Coloradans want, based on past ballot proposals to ban fracking as well as outright bans and moratoria (almost all of which were overturned, by the way), and that is knowledge.
Because if Coloradans had more knowledge, other than the numerous scientific studies that show the practice is safe, then everyone could embrace fracking and sing Kumbaya around a politically correct campfire of non-burning rocks.
We kid.
What they are clearly aiming for is enactment of Cliff Wilmeng’s new socialist order via the “community rights amendment,” where businesses are banned unless the collective say it’s okay to exist in their midst.
It’s certainly in keeping with the union’s founding document, which had more to do with the United State’s relationship with the Soviet Union than actual science.
Before we pass judgment on the task force’s efforts as a success or failure, let’s at least give the legislature time to act.