Gov. Bill Ritter said he had a “spiritual experience” looking over a pristine desert precipice after a helicopter dropped him off recently in the middle of Vermillion Basin.
“We want to leave things better than how we find them,” Ritter said Thursday to The Denver Forum, a group of business and civic leaders. “For me, the Vermillion crystallized that.”
The governor toured the Western Slope’s Roan Plateau and the Vermillion on the Colorado-Wyoming border last week after a federal agency approved plans for more oil and gas drilling there.
On Thursday, he named five new members to the oil and gas commission – transforming it from a panel dominated by industry representatives to one that includes environmental, wildlife and public-health advocates.
Ritter’s remake of the commission, approved by the legislature this year, reduced from five to three the number of industry voices and expanded the panel to nine members. The new members include environmental consultants and an ecologist to ensure vegetation returns after oil and gas exploration.
“These are different voices,” Ritter said. “We can create an energy future for our state and our nation that is built on the best available technology and does not come at the expense of our environmental future.”
But Greg Schnacke, executive vice president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the commission has had a “strong, legislatively mandated mission to protect public health and the environment since 1994.”
“We have a very tough regulatory system now,” Schnacke said. “What more could be added to that? It’s not clear to me yet what that would be.”
The new commission members are Joshua Epel, who helped write the Colorado Air Pollution Prevention and Control Act; Garfield County Commissioner Tresi Houpt; Michael Dowling, chairman of the Colorado Conservation Trust; ecology consultant Richard Alward; and Thomas Compton, manager of a commercial beef enterprise.
The governor said the oil and gas industry, which pumps $22 billion into the economy annually, will remain essential. But he said he will be a “stubborn steward” to protect Colorado’s water and land, and push to diversify the energy economy through solar, wind and biomass.
“We’re stewards of this place,” he said. “We’re stewards of this time. It’s not just about governing. It’s not just about leadership. It’s about citizenship.”
The governor is embroiled in a fight with the Bureau of Land Management, which is planning to lease 70 percent of the Roan Plateau for drilling. Ritter wanted 120 days to review the proposal. The federal agency gave him 24.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
