{"id":381,"date":"2026-06-01T11:03:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=381"},"modified":"2026-06-01T11:03:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T11:03:07","slug":"colorados-war-over-oil-and-gas-is-a-never-ending-story-new-political-players-have-upended-a-fragile-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradorelocationreport.com\/?p=381","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s war over oil and gas is a never-ending story. New political players have upended a fragile peace."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Colorado\u2019s oil and gas wars broke more than two decades ago as the industry and local communities found themselves at loggerheads over the race to pull fossil fuels from lands stretching from the Utah border to the Kansas state line.<\/p>\n

Read more Where John Hickenlooper, Julie Gonzales stand on the issues in Colorado\u2019s Democratic U.S. Senate primary<\/a><\/p>\n

Twenty years on it looks like the battle still has legs.<\/p>\n

The most recent skirmish broke out in March when Conservation Colorado filed four ballot measures aimed at tightening oil and gas operators\u2019 liability for damages and cleanup of contaminated groundwater.<\/p>\n

The volley was in response to a \u201cright to natural gas\u201d ballot measure by Advance Colorado, which describes itself as an organization focused on \u201creversing radical policies that are harming the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scrap upended a delicate armistice negotiated in 2024 by Gov. Jared Polis to defuse then warring ballot measures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This spring\u2019s row is, however, only the most recent twist in the long running battle between environmentalists and communities who want to see drilling gone, or at least gone far away, and the industry, which maintains it has the nation\u2019s cleanest and most regulated operations for a resource used every day.<\/p>\n

Advance Colorado\u2019s Initiative 177 would enshrine in the state constitution the right of consumers to purchase natural gas for cooking and heating and the right for producers to sell it. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe and the other parties have an agreement and have honored it, but if Advance Colorado wants to play in this space, if they break it, they own it,\u201d said Kelly Nordini, Conservation Colorado\u2019s chief executive. \u201cIf Advance Colorado\u2019s initiative goes away, so do ours.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

This leaves the oil and gas industry representatives who negotiated the agreement frustrated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain committed to the agreement brokered by Governor Polis, which is still intact,\u201d said Dan Haley, executive director of Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development, an industry group known as CRED.<\/p>\n

The industry does not support the Advance Colorado ballot measure and has no direct relationship with the group, Haley said.<\/p>\n

Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado Institute \u2014 the group\u2019s policy arm \u2014 declined to comment. Advance Colorado has until June 25 to submit signatures to get the measure on the November ballot.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

And so, despite decades of lawmaking, rulemaking, negotiation and collaboration, the underlying tensions remain, tensions that began two decades ago with a boom \u2014 a natural gas drilling boom in the Western Slope\u2019s Piceance Basin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like an invasion,\u201d said Matt Sura, who was then a community organizer for the Western Colorado Alliance, a grassroots consumer and environment advocacy group<\/p>\n

On either side of Interstate 70 through the Grand Valley, for more than 30 miles, there were drilling rigs lit up like Christmas trees, with one company\u2019s rigs flying the pirate Jolly Roger, Sura said. Ribbons of flame from flaring licked the sky<\/p>\n

Garfield County was the most heavily drilled county in the West in 2008, with 3,181 \u201crig weeks,\u201d equal to a drill rig running for a week. That was 40% more than the next most active area, Sublette County, Wyoming, according to an Headwater Economics study.<\/p>\n

The influx of oil field workers drove up real estate prices and housing became hard to come by. Trailer complexes, known as man camps, sprang up. This rural swatch of Colorado suffered traffic jams and streams of trucks beat up the roads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings were going so fast and furious, mistakes were being made, and we didn\u2019t have a state agency that was equipped with either the rules or the staff,\u201d Sura said.<\/p>\n

It was into this maelstrom that Bill Ritter ran a successful campaign for governor in 2006. Having heard the concerns and complaints of Western Slope voters, the new governor set about overhauling the state\u2019s oil and gas regulations, last updated in 1994.<\/p>\n

It was a marathon of rulemaking stretching over 18 months. And in December 2008, 177 pages of new rules were adopted. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which oversaw the industry, was overhauled and staff was added.<\/p>\n

Among the new rules was a 350-foot setback for drilling rigs from homes in developed areas. The setback had been 150 feet, a distance that ensured if a rig tipped over it would not hit the house.<\/p>\n

That, however, was only the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rules are an improvement, but there are gaps, and as drilling increases in suburban areas, those gaps are going to become more visible,\u201d Mike Freeman, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit public interest law firm, predicted at the time.<\/p>\n

Meg Collins, then president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, or COGA, called the rules \u201ca pie in the face\u201d to the industry. In January 2009, COGA filed a lawsuit in Denver District Court challenging the new regulations.<\/p>\n

True to Freeman\u2019s prophecy, the development of hydrofracturing, or fracking, and horizontal drilling enabled oil and gas to be freed from the tight shale formations beneath the Front Range.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And by 2010, the industry was moving from the Northwest Colorado\u2019s Piceance Basin to the Front Ranges\u2019s Denver-Julesburg Basin, which stretches from north of Colorado Springs to the Wyoming border.<\/p>\n

Now drilling was sometimes cheek by jowl with suburban development. The uproar was quick in coming.<\/p>\n

Cities enter the fray<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 2012, Longmont adopted a drilling moratorium and rules banning fracking in residential areas. COGA sued and then-Gov. John Hickenlooper\u2019s administration joined the industry, arguing the state had primacy over oil and gas regulation.<\/p>\n

Still, Fort Collins, Boulder County and Broomfield, among others,imposed drilling moratoriums.<\/p>\n

Grassroots groups formed, including Broomfield Clean Air and Water, Erie Rising, Adams County Communities for Drilling Accountability Now, Weld Air and Water, Citizens for a Healthy Fort Collins, and the League of Oil Impacted Coloradans.<\/p>\n

City council and county commission meetings were flooded with concerned, and sometimes angry, citizens.<\/p>\n

At a packed Erie town board meeting considering a drilling moratorium, one resident addressed the trustees wearing a gas mask and a lawyer representing COGA raised the prospect of a lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m willing to be sued by the state or whoever,\u201d Erie Mayor Tina Harris, a middle school teacher, said in response to the COGA threat. \u201cI want the state to hear loud and clear, I am not going to be threatened into not doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n

One instrument, pioneered by Erie, was the \u201cmemorandum of understanding\u201d in which a driller agreed to take specified protective measures in exchange for local approval.<\/p>\n

A Broomfield City Council meeting to approve a memorandum \u2014 after a court had struck down its drilling moratorium \u2014 ran seven and a half hours, well past midnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe packed the entire council chamber, the whole entire atrium, all the courtrooms in the basement with people watching on TVs,\u201d said Laurie Anderson, then a leader of Broomfield Clean Air and Water and now a city councilperson. \u201cThere were several hundred people there just saying, \u2018No, don\u2019t do this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

With few other options, the council approved the memorandum. Indeed, local officials were stymied as the state, citing a 1992 state Supreme Court decision, told them they had limited power over the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs public officials, we have the power to keep all industrial activities away from residential areas \u2014 except for drilling,\u201d Gerry Horak, a Fort Collins city councilmember in 2013, said at the time. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The battle was heightened by the fact that the Front Range was facing not only a drilling boom but a suburban housing boom, placing homes and drill sites in competition for land.<\/p>\n

The fight turned to the legislature, where year after year barrages of dueling oil and gas bills were filed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On one side: The Operator Liable for Oil and Gas Operations bill and the Affirm Local Government Siting Authority bill.<\/p>\n

On the other side: the Recognize Importance Oil Gas Industry and Local Government Liable Fracking Ban Oil And Gas Moratorium bills.<\/p>\n

The legislature, however, was gridlocked with the Democrats holding the House and the Republicans controlling the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ran a number of bills during those years, and all but one of them passed the House, but none of them passed the Senate,\u201d said Michael Foote, a former Democratic state representative from Lafayette. \u201cBut I think they did a good job of bringing the issue up and really honing arguments and building public support.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOil and gas do so much with severance tax dollars,\u201d countered Perry Buck, who was a Republican Weld County representative and is now a Weld County Commissioner. \u201cIt pays for water projects, it pays for DOLA (Department of Local Affairs) grants, and for water treatment plants for municipalities. The oil and gas industry is important to the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Industry adopts new measures<\/strong><\/h2>\n

At the same time, the industry was changing on its own, trying to address concerns with new technology and methods, including using pipelines and central facilities to cut down on tanks and truck traffic, decreasing the time it took to drill a well, adding high sound walls and onsite air monitoring.<\/p>\n

The industry had also moved from confrontation to collaboration. Colorado became the first state with fracking fluid disclosure rules and groundwater testing rules after negotiations between environmental groups and the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of those were happening way ahead of things happening in the country,\u201d said Haley, who was then president of COGA. \u201cWe have been willing to come to the table. And when at the table \u2026 you can come to an agreement that works for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

COGA dropped its lawsuit over the regulations. The days of the Jolly Roger and \u201cpie in the face\u201d were gone \u2014 but wells were still being drilled near homes and schools.<\/p>\n

Impatient with the session-after-session legislative skirmishes, oil and gas opponents took to the ballot box in 2014.<\/p>\n

One initiative would have required drilling rigs to be set back 2,000 feet from homes. Another would have added an environmental bill of rights to the state constitution.<\/p>\n

Both measures were supported by the environmental community and were backed politically and financially by Jared Polis, then representing the 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House.<\/p>\n

The industry countered with two ballot measures: one that would have withheld state oil and gas revenue from communities banning drilling and a second requiring a fiscal impact note for all initiatives.<\/p>\n

Business and industry groups raised $9.2 million to oppose the environmentalists\u2019 ballot measures and Coloradans for Safe and Clean Energy, supported by Polis, had a\u00a0 $2.2 million war chest.<\/p>\n

It was shaping up to be the most expensive ballot battle in the state\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been scorched earth,\u201d predicted Pat Hamill, president of Oakwood Homes and chairman of Colorado Concern, one of the initiative industry groups.<\/p>\n

Read more It\u2019s summertime, and the readin\u2019 is easy. Fortunately, so is finding an interesting title.<\/a><\/p>\n

Hickenlooper stepped in and negotiated the first oil and gas truce. Each side agreed to withdraw their initiatives and the governor appointed a 21-member commission to make recommendations to the legislature on ways to minimize land use conflicts over oil and gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dynamic was between local governments wanting to regulate the surface and the state wanting to regulate down-hole and ensure fostering of the development of oil and gas,\u201d said panelist Jeff Robbins, an attorney representing local governments \u2014 including Lafayette, Aurora, and Adams County \u2014 on oil and gas issues. \u201cSo, the task force was developed to see if they could come up with answers to the conundrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was designed to fail,\u201d said Sura, who by then was an attorney representing Front Range communities and homeowners on oil and gas issues and was also on the panel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A recommendation needed a two-thirds vote, but the oil and gas industry and other economic interests, such as homebuilders and agriculture, together held veto power<\/p>\n

The final recommendations called for more local input and additional oil and gas inspectors, but no local control. The local control recommendations were in a minority report that presaged things to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe oil and gas industry proved they weren\u2019t interested in a compromise or solving the problem,\u201d Polis said in a statement after the report was issued.<\/p>\n

\u00a0And so, Hickenlooper\u2019s compromise ended one war, but not all wars.<\/p>\n

Conflict shifts to new front<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Battle lines were drawn again at the ballot box in 2018. Colorado Rising, a coalition of environmental and community groups, sponsored Initiative 112 that would have required a 2,500-foot setback from homes for drill rigs. The buffer had already been increased to 500 feet in state rules.<\/p>\n

Industry forces countered with a measure that would have placed in the state constitution the right of property owners to seek damages for any diminution of property value caused by government action.<\/p>\n

Both were defeated. The setback measure failed with 57% opposed and 43% in support. The property rights measure garnered 54% of the votes but since it was seeking to be added to the state constitution it needed 55%.<\/p>\n

The oil and gas industry spent an estimated $40 million to defeat Initiative 112, which it argued amounted to a ban on drilling in much of Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe came together as a state,\u201d said Weld County\u2019s Buck. \u201cWe were going to protect our oil and gas, and it was a monumental ballot issue where people who wanted those oil and gas jobs, people in agriculture who needed the added income for their mineral rights, came together<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a heavy lift,\u201d Buck added. \u201cIt was a huge statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

We came together as a state. We were going to protect our oil and gas \u2026 It was a huge statement.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Perry Buck, Weld County Commissioner<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Still, the setback measure received 825,000 favorable votes and that same ballot put Democrats in control of both houses of the legislature and made Jared Polis the governor-elect. The stage was set for a pivotal donnybrook.<\/p>\n

The vessel for all the ribbon commission recommendations not made and all the stalled legislation of previous years was Senate Bill 181.<\/p>\n

It aimed to give local governments more control and reorient state rules from promoting the efficient development of oil and gas to regulating it to protect public health, safety, welfare, wildlife and the environment.<\/p>\n

It was one of the most hotly contested and heavily lobbied bills of the 2019 session. One hearing ran till 2 a.m. with 180 people testifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was definitely a contentious process,\u201d said Foote, who was a co-sponsor of the bill. \u201cIt was heavily opposed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bill passed on Democratic votes. All the Republicans and a few Democrats in competitive districts voted against it.<\/p>\n

Weld County\u2019s Buck said \u201cthe legislature turned around and said, \u2018Oh, forget that ballot initiative victory. We\u2019re going to try to shut down oil and gas.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In signing the bill, Polis declared the oil and gas wars over.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 181 directed the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and the Air Quality Control Commission to revise their rules. It also reconstituted the oil and gas commission, reducing industry representation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a game changer,\u201d said Robbins, who was the interim director of the oil and gas commission and had a hand in writing the bill. \u201cIt changed the (commission\u2019s) mission \u2026 and changed a lot of priorities and kicked off this marathon rulemaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between 2020 and 2025, the oil and gas commission, which was renamed the Energy and Carbon Management Commission in 2023, had 11 major rulemakings on issues ranging from well integrity to the financial condition of operators.<\/p>\n

One rule extended the setback between drill sites and homes to 2,000 feet.<\/p>\n

Robbins said that they enacted all those regulations without \u201cany litigation challenge to the efficacy of the rules \u2026 That is remarkable.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the state Air Quality Control Commission there were 15 key rulemakings, including first-in-the nation methane reduction rule based on operator performance and a first-in-the-nation rule clamping down on pollution-emitting equipment called controllers.<\/p>\n

The first controller rules were also negotiated and COGA and the Environmental Defense Fund issued a joint release praising them.<\/p>\n

The rules have made it more cumbersome and costly for the industry to operate in Colorado and operators are left wondering what\u2019s coming next, said Lynn Granger, the current president of COGA.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis industry just needs a chance to catch its breath and operate under this new structure,\u201d Granger said. \u201cBut again, we see bills that are being pushed by folks that just simply don\u2019t want us to operate here, and that\u2019s the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

As if to prove the point, in 2020, a coalition of environmental groups proposed more ballot initiatives, including a 2,500-foot setback, and the industry responded with a right to natural gas and fiscal note initiatives.<\/p>\n

Now it was Polis who played the role of peacemaker, getting the industry to withdraw its initiatives in exchange for agreements from legislators to pause new oil and gas bills and from environmental groups to stand down.<\/p>\n

Still, in 2022 Polis had to put down another ballot flap.<\/p>\n

Then in 2024 an environmental coalition proposed a ballot measure to end Colorado oil and gas permitting by 2030 and another group, led by Conservation Colorado, filed three measures including ones to hold oil and gas companies strictly liable for damages and create a private right of action to enforce environmental regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with new rules, oil and gas is a major cause of pollution in our state, we don\u2019t see pollution going down,\u201d Heidi Leathwood, climate policy analyst for 350 Colorado, one of the environmental groups said. \u201cWe can\u2019t keep drilling an average of 1,000 wells a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compounding the pressure on the industry were bills in the legislature aimed to reduce ozone pollution, including one that would pause oil and gas drilling in summer months.<\/p>\n

Oil and gas operations account for about 45% of the Front Range emissions of nitrogen oxides and 41% of volatile organic compounds \u2014 the two ingredients of ozone, according to a University of Colorado study.<\/p>\n

The industry countered once more with an \u201cenergy choice\u201d ballot measure to safeguard natural gas.<\/p>\n

It was up to Polis to talk everyone down, and he came up with a compromise under which the ozone legislation and ballot measures would go away and the industry would pay a fee for each barrel of oil produced.<\/p>\n

By one estimate, the fee could raise about $138 million a year which would go to transportation and public lands projects, as well as capping old oil and gas wells.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn coming together, this diverse group agreed that costly, divisive ballot measures and legislation are not in the interest of the state,\u201d Polis said in announcing the deal.<\/p>\n

But is the conflict really over?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Yet here we are again with Advance Colorado proposing another right to natural gas measure and Conservation Colorado with initiatives to hold operators liable for damages to air, land and water and prevent existing homeowners from being charged by a utility for extensions of the natural gas system.<\/p>\n

On May 7, Polis gathered Conservation Colorado\u2019s Nordini and the industry\u2019s Haley to together announce a \u201crenewed commitment to the agreement reached in 2024 to avoid costly and divisive ballot measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is not the time to play politics with energy in Colorado, \u201d Nordini said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Haley agreed: \u201cWe oppose any energy-related ballot measure in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, as long as Advance Colorado\u2019s initiative remains in play, so will those of Conservation Colorado\u2019s, Nordini said.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Now is not the time to play politics with energy in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Kelly Nordini, Conservation Colorado<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

While all this was going on, the new rules are proving \u201ca new level of protection and oversight,\u201d Robbins, the energy commission\u2019s chairman, said. \u201cWe\u2019re now at a place where we probably have the most comprehensive rules on oil and gas activity in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some local governments, including Broomfield and Adams County, have also used the local control grant by the the law to develop their own regulations, oil and gas departments and inspectors.<\/p>\n

Both Foote, who is also an attorney, and Sura have represented local governments and residents before the energy commission. They say things have improved and despite the predictions of its demise, the industry is still around.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are still able to access all of the resources that are in Colorado, and it only means that they are doing it in a way that isn\u2019t going to harm the people and the environment,\u201d Sura said.<\/p>\n

And yet, the anxiety remains that the rules still aren\u2019t protective enough. Robbins has said: \u201cIf you tick all the boxes, if you meet our robust regulatory regime, you\u2019re deserving of a permit approval.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foote has countered: \u201cJust because an operator checks all the boxes doesn\u2019t mean that is sufficiently protective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The argument was drawn in stark relief in April when the residents around the Aurora Reservoir challenged an application to drill 24 wells 3,000 feet from homes.<\/p>\n

A grassroots group \u2014 Save the Aurora Reservoir, or STAR \u2014 hired Foote to represent them and paid for expert witnesses to outline impacts and risks to the ECMC, even though the closet home was about 3,000 feet away \u2013 well beyond the required setback<\/p>\n

For its part, operator Crestone Peak Resources reduced the size of the project, cutting the drilling and fracking time by six months and committing to a series of best management practices, including using quieter, nonpolluting electric drill rigs and pipelines to cut truck traffic.<\/p>\n

In the end, the commission approved the drilling plan on a 3-2 vote.<\/p>\n

In casting his vote for the drilling pad, Robbins said, \u201cIf we say no here, then we might as well do away with the 2,000-foot setback, and we ought to start over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lesson from the Aurora Reservoir decision for 350\u2019s Leathwood is there is more to do. \u201cThere may be further legislation that\u2019s needed,\u201d she said, \u201clike Robbins said about coming back to that setback rule.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more What\u2019s Working: Saving Jamestown\u2019s historic Mercantile, where everybody knows your name<\/a><\/p>\n

And so the war grinds on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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