The revamped Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission lived up to their new mission Monday of regulatory bias with extreme prejudice to cripple the industry.
It was all accidentally previewed in a mass email over the weekend to test recipients with not-so-subtle epithets like “Snake Oil Inc,” “Bad Oil and Gas,” and “The Lorax.”
And the energy industry’s new regulatory overlords acted as predicted with an axe to chip away at oil and gas production.
Most egregious is the new setback of 2,000 feet of certain buildings and wildlife the commission approved, effectively eliminating millions of acres from fracking and more than $1 billion in tax revenues over the next decade.
Boo and hiss. Science is never around when liberals need it most.
From the Colorado Oil and Gas Association:
“While we agreed with many of the changes enacted by COGCC commissioners, there were several points of contention. Commissioners approved unprecedented 2,000-foot siting requirements, largely based on the precautionary principle, as no scientific evidence was presented that showed such an extreme distance was necessary. In fact, all of the testimony from toxicologists during the hearings included data showing that the previous 500-foot setback was protective of public health, safety, and the environment.”
For those of you just now tuning in to the dismantling of our state’s primary economic driver, the Democrat-controlled state legislature passed a law (SB 181) last year to dismantle the commission’s mission to foster energy growth.
Instead, the commission is being stacked with government regulators to play politics and create new rules according to whichever way the woke winds are blowing with national environmental groups backed by the Democrat Party.