The Colorado business community is banding together to get ahead of a looming statewide ballot initiative aimed at banning hydraulic fracturing. The creation of a coalition called Vital for Colorado was announced this week and features an impressive coalition of business and civic leaders from around the state who support responsible oil and gas development.
Normally, the announcement of another coalition of business leaders would elicit nothing more than a yawn from us. Let’s face it, coalition building is one of the business community’s favorite hobbies. But this group grabbed our attention. The engagement of the entire business community beyond just the oil and gas companies that operate in Colorado shows how far over the line the environmentalists have truly stepped.
But that’s not why this peaked our interest. The most important thing that broad business community support brings to a political fight (besides credibility) is MONEY. In a battle that is expected to cost upwards of $60 million, having the support of people and businesses that actually create jobs and wealth is going to be a difference maker.
Fracking has ceased being a partisan issue, despite the likes of Rep. Jared Polis throwing his money behind anti-fracking groups. This issue affects anyone in Colorado who enjoys working in a state with a strong economy, or for that matter enjoys heating their home and driving a car.
Why even start with a Ballot Initiative? They can just get the enviros on the Air Commission or the Oil and Gas Commission to rule by edict like they did two weeks ago with the Air Quality ruling.
"As a group, businessmen have been withdrawing for decades from the ideological battlefield, disarmed by the deadly combination of altruism and Pragmatism. Their public policy has consisted in appeasing, compromising and apologizing: appeasing their crudest, loudest antagonists; compromising with any attack, any lie, any insult; apologizing for their own existence. Abandoning the field of ideas to their enemies, they have been relying on lobbying, i.e., on private manipulations, on pull, on seeking momentary favors from government officials. Today, the last group one can expect to fight for capitalism is the capitalists." -Ayn Rand
This is finally, it seems, beginning to change. A new dawn of freedom and prosperity beckons.