I’m trying to imagine what would happen in the Colorado legislature if the Teamsters union insisted only truck drivers had the expertise to oversee the trucking industry and tattoo artists claimed they alone were qualified to regulate the burgeoning body artistry business.
Just a guess, but I doubt Republicans from Highlands Ranch and Yuma would rise in passionate defense of such screwball suggestions.
The reason is the Teamsters and the tattoo artists haven’t had their lobbyists in the governor’s office for the past eight years as well as inside the Department of Interior, the vice president’s office and the White House. That distinction goes to the oil and gas industry.
So it’s no wonder that its allies are in a fulsome uproar about changing the composition of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a group that has been all oil and gas and no conservation for as long as anybody can remember.
Duke Cox, president of the Grand Valley Citizens’ Alliance, put it simply: “These guys have been bullies.”
Last week Rep. Kathleen Curry’s bill to expand the commission to nine members – including a local government official, an expert in environmental protection, a soil conservationist, a rancher who receives mineral royalties, the directors of the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Public Health and Environment, and three industry representatives – was characterized by Rep. Frank McNulty as the death knell for the entire industry in Colorado.
It’s preposterous.
The Highlands Ranch Republican actually was suggesting that oil and gas has been self-regulated for so long, if it even has to consider the impact that exploration and drilling have on public health, the environment, property owners’ rights or local governments, it can’t survive.
“They’re using the freezing- in-the-dark arguments,” said Curry, a Democrat from Gunnison. “It’s all scare tactics.”
Cox, who lives amid the racket, the traffic, the pollution, the destruction of roads, the despoiling of the rural towns and the unbridled arrogance of the oil and gas industry in western Colorado, is less temperate in his criticism.
“All they ever want to talk about is money,” he said. “As long as they keep the subject on money, they’re in charge.”
Over the years the oil and gas industry has bought the political influence that has ensured it immunity from public scrutiny in Colorado.
In 1999, oil and gas contributed nearly $80,000 for the inaugural festivities for Bill Owens – on top of generous support during his campaign.
Owens was a lobbyist for the Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Association while he served in the state legislature and voted on dozens of bills affecting his boss.
The former governor is the reason the bill to change the COGCC wasn’t introduced until now.
“Everybody told us it was a waste of time. Owens would veto it,” Cox said.
The timing of the House vote Friday turned out to be ironic.
While Colorado legislators were debating whether to provide balance on the commission, another oil and gas lobbyist appointed to regulate the industry nationally was before a judge in Washington, D.C., facing a possible prison sentence.
J. Steven Griles, former deputy secretary of Interior under Gale Norton, pleaded guilty Friday to lying to a Senate committee about his relationship with influence-peddling Jack Abramoff.
Cox said it was industry goons like Griles infiltrating government agencies that allowed the industry to destroy a way of life in western Colorado.
“These guys got it in their heads somehow that there is a complete mandate to drill and everyone else has to get out of the way,” he said.
Curry said the industry can thrive even with a balance of interests represented on the commission. And she insists the people of western Colorado be heard.
It’s time.
“Opposition to this bill came from people who don’t live next door to gas wells,” she said, “and frankly they’re in no position to speak to this issue.”
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
