Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, and U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, and emcee Steffan Tubbs from KOA radio at a breakfast in downtown Denver Wednesday to discuss Colorado’s energy future. (The Denver Post)
Gov. John Hickenlooper told the state’s energy movers and shakers Wednesday that if there are fracking initiatives on the ballot in 2016 he doubts they will have “significant” money behind them.
Hickenlooper, a Democrat, and U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, discussed Colorado’s energy future at a breakfast in downtown Denver. They agreed on many issues, including expanding opportunities for global oil exports. Gardner called
Colorado’s energy opportunities the “envy of the world” and said “let’s keep it going.”
After the breakfast, Hickenlooper said the “tenor” now isn’t anything like it was in 2014 when the state was fighting over fracking.
Congressman Jared Polis, a Boulder millionaire, had bankrolled two ballot measures that critics said would cripple Colorado’s oil-and-gas industry and the economy, but he said he was doing so for his constituents and for local leaders who felt they weren’t being listened to.
Hickenlooper was credited with that ended with Polis pulling the measures, a task force studying oil-and-gas concerns and the state dropping its lawsuit against the city of Longmont for banning fracking.
Hickenlooper came to Colorado to work as a geologist, and he was asked how that has influenced his decisions as governor. Some on the left have accused him of being too cozy with the oil-and-gas industry.
“I’m biased — in favor of the facts,” the governor said.
Gardner said he grew up in Yuma, a town so small it only had two stoplights. Now thanks to natural gas, he said, it has three.
Hickenlooper and Gardner lauded the efforts of who have banded together to talk about the importance of energy production to the state’s economic future. The organization sponsored the breakfast at the Four Seasons.
“This breakfast is designed to show it’s not just the jobs on the rigs and the pipelines that are at stake. It’s the restaurants and the gas stations,” Gardner said.
He added that he gets asked about fracking now when he visits elementary schools because kids hear their parents and teachers talking about it and see the issue on TV.
Plenty of bold-face names in Colorado’s political and business arenas were at the breakfast.
They include: former Gov. Bill Owens; Dan Haley, the new president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association; Senate President Bill Cadman of Colorado Springs, House Majority Leader Crisanta Duran of Denver, strategist Mike Dino, Secretary of State Wayne Williams, Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, Weld County Commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer, Adams County Commissioner Erik Hansen, former House Speaker Frank McNulty of Highlands Ranch, investor Blair Richardson, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce President Kelly Brough and Katie Behnke and Kristin Strohm with the Starboard Group.
