This morning, the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously reversed a split ruling from the state’s Court of Appeals regarding the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s approach to new energy development.
To make a five-year story short, in 2013, young Boulder activists linked up with out-of-state lawyers to sue the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), the regulatory body that oversees the oil and gas industry. These folks would like for you to believe today that their concern was simply that the COGCC doesn’t sufficiently weigh health and safety concerns when issuing permits to oil and gas companies, which by the way, is a complete false narrative.
History tells a very different story. Turns out, their stated intention from the outset of this saga was to shutter Colorado’s oil and gas industry entirely. Don’t take our word for it, take their word for it:
If you are following tdday’s Martinez vs. COGCC ruling, let’s recall the goal of the litigation.
In a 2013 interview when the petition was filed, the lead plaintiff said the goal was “a statewide ban” not new regulations #copolitics pic.twitter.com/848dbr3AjS— Simon R. Lomax (@simonrlomax) January 14, 2019
From that lens, we were hardly surprised that the state’s highest court decided to side with the literal and metaphoric adults in the room.
In the wake of the (again, unanimous) ruling, Colorado’s new liberal leadership has decided that the best way to circumvent a ruling on a law from the state Supreme Court is to… change the law. We wish we were kidding:
In response to the CO Supreme Court ruling in Martinez v. COGCC today: pic.twitter.com/OyO5OLgpCt
— KC Becker (@kcbecker) January 14, 2019
This, after Proposition 112 failed by double-digits on the very night that the Democrats won every major race in Colorado.
It’s getting tiresome to have to repeat that elections have consequences. Colorado’s Democrats have decided that your vote on Proposition 112 didn’t matter, and neither does a pesky ruling from the state’s preeminent arbiter of justice. They want to have their way in spite of these realities, and they’ll abruptly change our laws to get it done.
How very democratic.