Gwen Lachelt issued a pissy little email this morning to her colleagues on Hickenlooper’s oil and gas task force that amounted to a back-handed call for fractivists to rise up and accomplish what she couldn’t – a ban on the energy development.
Lachelt began by stomping her feet and shaking her fist at task force members who disagreed with her on backdoor banning techniques so-called local government control.
She said she was “disappointed” her peeps did not take advantage of such an “historic opportunity” to “send a strong recommendation to the Governor and the Legislature that local governments should have greater authority in the siting of wells and other land use impacts of oil and gas development, such as noise and traffic management.”
Lachelt goes on to rehash how “disheartening” it was that local veto power was misrepresented as, uhm, local veto power, then signed off in a most quizzical manner:
I’ve stated a number of times since early January that it is difficult, if not impossible, to resolve decades of conflict over oil and gas activities in five months. I do hope that a process to address oil and gas conflicts will arise to carry forward the work of the Task Force. I have always believed that we can have a robust oil and gas economy in Colorado without the impacts we have seen for the last several decades on people’s health, quality of life, and property values.
At our first gatherings, Task Force member Perry Pearce (ConocoPhillips) quoted Theodore Roosevelt by stating, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
I’d like to echo that quote and bid you all farewell by sharing one of my favorite quotes by Sir Winston Churchill, “Never, never, never quit!”
Not exactly a subtle call for action.