A compromise over a proposal to bring environmental, health and landowner voices to the industry-dominated oil and gas regulatory process unanimously passed a Senate committee Monday.
“Who would have thought we could have an oil and gas bill opposed by neither the conservation community nor the oil and gas industry?” said Carrie Doyle, executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters.
Indeed, the oil and gas industry, which had strongly opposed Gov. Bill Ritter’s original plan to overhaul and expand the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, grudgingly signed on.
Stan Dempsey, president of the Colorado Petroleum Association, told the Senate state affairs committee he was concerned that the bigger and broader regulatory body “could easily become politicized to a point where it cannot function.”
But he said he would “no longer actively oppose the bill” because senators agreed to drop language that the industry feared would give the commission more authority to deny energy companies access to mineral rights beneath property they don’t own.
Harris Sherman, director of natural resources and author of the plan, and Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus, who sponsored it in the Senate, told the panel that the plan is not to slow down the drilling permitting process but to ensure environmental and health concerns are considered.
“Right or wrong, there is a perception that the industry is regulating itself,” Sherman said.
The state expects to approve 6,000 drilling permits this year, six times as many as in 2000.
House Bill 1341 increases the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from seven to nine members.
The commission currently must have five members with extensive industry backgrounds. Sherman’s plan would reduce that to three, while adding one government official, one environmentalist or wildlife expert, one person with experience in soil conservation, one agricultural royalty owner and the heads of the natural resources and public health departments.
The bill also would expand the commission’s mission of fostering oil and gas development to include protecting public health, wildlife and the environment.
Sherman said the bill strikes a “delicate balance.”
Under the bill, the commission would write rules to accommodate the broadened mission. An amendment added in committee ensures the legislature reviews those rules and has the power to change or repeal them.
Although he ultimately voted for the bill, Rep. David Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, questioned whether the Ritter administration – which is heavily promoting renewable energies – had an “ulterior motive to make oil and gas less viable.”
“That thought never crossed my mind,” Isgar responded. “The two go hand in hand.”
The bill now goes to the appropriations committee before going to the full Senate. Changes must then be approved by the House.
Capitol Bureau chief Jeri Clausing can be reached at 303-954-1555 or jclausing@denverpost.com.
