the Colorado Supreme Court last week ruled for fracking and against the rights of the people in Longmont and Fort Collins. In so doing, the court ruled against the rights of all Colorado citizens to have a say about oil and gas development in their neighborhoods.
Barbara Mill-Bria, president of a citizens’ advocate group called Be the Change, said: “This is the opposite of democracy. The people are not happy waking up to find an oil rig in their back yard and being told they have no real say in the matter.”
Due to health and safety concerns, both cities had decided by popular vote to ban oil and gas drilling within their city limits. Under the Colorado Constitution, the right of citizens to legislate has been termed a first right, superior to that of the legislature’s.
The court ignored those rights of the citizens in Longmont and Fort Collins.
The court ruled that the citizens’ inalienable rights in the Bill of Rights had been preempted by the Oil and Gas Conservation Act passed by our legislature. By this legislation, those rights belong to a small state agency, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which works primarily to encourage oil and gas development.
Weston Wilson, science adviser to Be the Change and former Environmental Protection Agency scientist (and whistleblower on known contamination of groundwater by fracking), said: “You know at some point people will start to understand we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Hell, apparently every acre in the state is up for grabs. And the Supreme Court is in on the job.”
Cut away the lofty language used to disguise greed and plunder, and what the court said is that we have no inalienable rights when it comes to oil and gas development. The legislature took those rights and gave them to their true friends on 16th Street.
But the power structure can only steal from us if we let them. Attorney Dan Leftwich said in the end, it’s still up to the people: “Today marks a new chapter, not the end of these disputes.”
“Article V of the Colorado Constitution was amended in 1910 because the people were concerned about the corrupting influence of special interests in state government,” Leftwich said.
“That is the situation Colorado citizens are encountering today. Special interests use the state’s power to preempt local communities from protecting their health, safety and the environment.”
However, he concluded: “In Article V, the people reserved the power to pass legislation of every character, independent of the General Assembly, precisely to put such decisions beyond the reach of the state. These fundamental rights cannot be preempted. These rights were not presented to the Supreme Court because the voters were not represented there, only the municipal governments that were opposed.
“The court’s opinions issued are not controlling precedent where the people’s right of initiative is raised as a defense.”
Colorado resident Phil Doe was the Environmental Compliance Officer for the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation. He also headed its policy office responsible for regulating water subsidies to irrigators and wrote federal regulations governing irrigation water subsidies in 11 Western states. He is currently a volunteer with Be the Change.
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