The 3-2 vote by , in favor of the State Sunlight/Long well pad proposed by Crestone Peak Resources, came after about five hours of testimony and deliberation. The decision ends what had become one of the more contentious battles over energy extraction in Colorado.

Board Chair Jeff Robbins acknowledged that the application from Crestone had evoked a strong reaction from homeowners living nearby. But in the end, the company complied with rigorous state oil and gas regulations enshrined in a law known as Senate Bill 181, which was passed by state lawmakers seven years ago.

“At the end of the day, State Sunlight/Long achieves the balance we were told to look for,” Robbins said.

The two commissioners who voted no were Trisha Oeth and John Messner. The approvals process for the Sunlight/Long well pad encompassed seven hearings before the commission, stretching over several months.

Nearby homeowners rose up in opposition, claiming that the project would pose health hazards to those living nearby — in particular, to school-age children. They also worried about the drilling’s potential environmental impacts on the Aurora Reservoir, which is a water source for the 400,000 residents of Colorado’s third-largest city.

“I cannot believe that the state came down on the side of the industry yet again,” Randy Willard, the president of opposition group , said in an interview minutes after the vote came down Tuesday afternoon. “The group as a whole is severely disappointed.”

The group had pushed back on the proposed project using the 2019 oil and gas reform law as a guide, Willard said.

The 2019 law prioritized public health, safety and the environment when regulators consider oil and gas development — a profound change from the industry-focused approach Colorado had taken for decades.

“We’ve done everything we feel is possible under 181, only to find the industry comes out on top yet again,” Willard said. “I don’t know what else we’re supposed to do.”

In December, the state commission voted 4-1 to put a stay on the project, ordering Crestone to return with a list of alternative sites from which it could drill.

Crestone, a subsidiary of Denver-based SM Energy Company, came back this month with a slimmed-down proposal, knocking down the number of wells at Sunlight/Long from 32 to 24.

The company insisted that after examining 11 other potential sites, most of which were farther away from homes, its preferred site near Aurora’s Southshore neighborhood and the reservoir remained the best place to locate its wells.

Civitas Resources was Crestone’s parent company until late January, .

Jamie Jost, an attorney for Crestone, spoke to the commission during an online hearing Tuesday that, at one point, was attended by nearly 1,000 people. She called the site the “most vetted, most analyzed” location for the pad.

The company said the site would have the least impact on wildlife and waterways across 26,500-acre Lowry Ranch, a stretch of rolling prairie owned by the Colorado State Land Board where Crestone has plans to drill just over 100 wells in total — down from 166 just a couple of years ago.

Dan Harrington, SM Energy’s asset development manager, told the commission that reducing the number of wells at Sunlight/Long would curtail the time needed for drilling and fracking.

“This will reduce operational duration by about 25%,” he testified.

And the scaled-back operation will emit fewer emissions, including of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds and methane, the company in favor of its preferred site.

Mike Foote, a former Democratic state lawmaker who represents the neighbor opposition group as its lawyer, testified that Crestone didn’t conduct an honest comparison of alternative sites.

“It found things wrong with everyone else’s suggested sites instead of coming up with something that worked,” he said.

But Nathan Bennett, SM Energy’s director of permitting and compliance, said Crestone looked at other potential locations with an open mind. The company, however, said the alternate sites had problems, with questions raised about whether Xcel Energy could provide electricity to some of them to power electric drilling equipment.

Other locations, the company said, would have required much longer truck trips and called for running pipe over more ecologically sensitive areas.

Commissioner Mike Cross said Crestone’s proposed site for Sunlight/Long was well outside the state’s required 2,000-foot distance buffer from homes. He said the company’s commitment to use quieter and cleaner electric equipment on site was a positive aspect of the project.

“The best practices that we’ve seen from operators in the state, we’ve seen in this application,” he said. “It does meet our rules.”

But Willard, who has been working to defeat the application for nearly two years, said neighbors were already complaining of noise from other Crestone drilling operations on Lowry Ranch. In a presentation that the opposition group ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, the group claimed that more than 40 noise complaints were filed with the agency last month alone.

That, Willard said, will only increase once drilling starts at Sunlight/Long in the coming months.

Senate Bill 181 changed the focus from fostering oil and gas development to regulating production in a way that protects public health and safety, the environment and wildlife. But after seven years of hours-long debates on new rules, overhauling regulatory processes and forging new working relationships with local governments, questions remain about whether the game has changed enough.

Or changed too much, as the oil and gas industry contends. Since the bulk of the new regulations kicked in, the number of permits approved for individual wells has dropped dramatically. said a total of 14,937 well permits were approved from 2015-18, compared to 3,980 approved from 2022-25.

However, Colorado remains among the country’s top producers for oil and gas, according to the

“Our industry has been very adaptive and innovative and working to meet those very high standards,” said Lynn Granger, CEO and president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.

“Unfortunately, at the end of the day, as we sit here in 2026, we still don’t have that regulatory certainty and we still have a pretty unstable environment both on the political front and on the regulatory front,” she added.

People who say the the state’s regulatory body for oil and gas, hasn’t done enough to prioritize public health and the environment believe the situation on the ground hasn’t changed considerably.

The landscape looks a lot like it did before SB181 became law, said Randy Willard of Aurora, who heads a community group fighting a plan by Crestone Peak Resources to drill 32 wells within roughly 3,000 feet of hundreds of homes and the The reservoir is the main water supply for Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city with about 400,000 residents.

The ECMC has approved three other well locations by Crestone in the area.

“We have fundraised over $110,000 over the course of three years. We spent probably three quarters of that on legal fees,” Willard said. “And at the end of the day, from where I sit, everything looks about the same as it did before SB181.”

Mike Foote, an attorney and former legislator who co-sponsored SB181, is representing the community group

The ECMC and told Crestone to consider alternative locations.

Willard said considering the potential risk to the reservoir and the thousands of people in the area, he would feel safer with at least a 1.5-mile buffer from the wells. He believes making the company move the well pad would be a positive step.

“It would give people some hope that we actually can impact the process,” he said.

A role for local governments

The year before lawmakers passed SB181, Colorado voters defeated an initiative that would have required a 2,500-foot buffer, or setback, from new oil and gas development.

Proponents raised health concerns about exposure to pollutants and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which injects water, chemicals and other substances underground to break through rocks to extract the minerals. One of the byproducts of oil and gas activity is benzene, known to cause cancer.

Also voted down in 2018 was a counter ballot proposal that would have allowed people to seek compensation if a government action or regulation devalued their property.

Millions of dollars were spent fighting and promoting the proposals. In 2019, the Colorado General Assembly passed SB181.

Regulators decreed setbacks from wells be at least 2,000 feet. But in a move that remains a sore spot for advocates of strong protections, they also approved exemptions.

Before SB181, the director of the ECMC, then called the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, reviewed and approved drilling applications. There wasn’t a regular public hearing process and even local governments had trouble getting an audience with commissioners, said Jeff Robbins, commission chairman and the agency’s former director.

Afterward, the volunteer commission was replaced with a full-time, professional body with a mix of expertise in such areas as oil and gas, land use and the environment. Cities and counties can write local rules and hearings for community feedback are held under certain circumstances.

A liaison team works with communities disproportionately affected by industrial pollution.

The commission completed writing rules in 2025 for the last of the bills related to SB181. Areas covered requiring oil and gas operators to show they can meet their financial obligations; restrictions on where wells can be drilled; and shutting down abandoned wells.

The ECMC regulates what happens underground while the law allows local governments to address activity on the surface and related transportation, noise, odors and dust. Local rules can be stricter than the state’s rules, but not less strict.

Robbins said SB181 didn’t spell out how the state, cities and counties should work together “in understanding this dual permitting process.” He said that gives the ECMC and local officials the opportunity to build relationships based on the different locales’ goals.

Weld County was a home-rule county before the oil and gas regulations were revamped, which granted a certain amount of autonomy over local matters. and is in the heart of the Denver-Julesburg Basin in northeast Colorado, one of the country’s more significant oil and gas fields.

But pre-SB181, Brett Cavanagh, director of the county’s oil and gas energy department, said local officials really didn’t have a role in overseeing the industry that’s a key part of the local economy.

Now, Weld County has a memorandum of understanding with the state. Cavanagh said the county’s relationship with the ECMC has grown and the commission participates in county meetings on well permit applications.

Holdups on the front end ripple through the system to the midstream companies, ones that gather, process, transport and store the oil and gas.

“We’ve seen a lot of change in ownership in midstream companies, and I think a lot of that is just due to the fact that the cost to do things is a lot here in the basin” due to regulations, Cavanagh said.

based in Texas, said in a statement that the volume of oil it handles in Colorado has dropped more than 26% since 2019 because of lower activity. The regulatory changes have affected how Western operates in the Denver-Julesburg Basin and evaluates future investment in Colorado, the company said.

Robbins, an attorney, has dealt with oil and gas development from the local perspective. He represented La Plata County, which years before SB181 wanted more say over the development the state was greenlighting within its borders. Counties didn’t get routine hearings before the oil and gas commission and Colorado courts ruled that state laws preempted local ordinances.

Robbins served on a task force formed by former Gov. John Hickenlooper to come up with solutions to the growing tensions between energy companies and suburban dwellers increasingly in the path of drilling. Many of the group’s ideas were included in SB181.

During that time, Robbins got to know then-U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who signed SB181 into law during his first term as governor. When he signed the bill, Polis said the hope was “the oil and gas wars that have enveloped our state are over and the winner is all of us.”

Erin Martinez was at the bill-signing ceremony. Her husband and brother died in a house explosion in Firestone in 2017 when an uncapped, cut flow line attached to a well leaked gas into the home. The law strengthened oversight of flow lines, which carry fluids or gas from the well to other parts of the site.

SB181 promises kept?

Polis said SB181 has worked as he envisioned. “The oil and gas wars was one the reasons I ran” for governor.

While the updated rules address a number of issues, Polis said a prime goal was a more transparent system for approving development and protections for communities. Previously, drilling could be as close as 250 feet to homes.

“(SB181) gave homeowners relief that they wouldn’t wake up one day to find 250 feet from their homes an industrial operation that would last months or years,” Polis said.

KC Becker, the former speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, was one of the prime sponsors of SB181. She called the legislation “transformational,” particularly because it changed the regulatory agency’s mission.

“For too long, the industry and the state had said that by law they had to put oil and gas interests ahead of the concerns of local communities,” said Becker, now CEO of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association.

Despite the changes, Heidi Leathwood questions��how much the paradigm for oil and gas regulation has shifted in the state. The climate policy analyst with , which advocates for using 100% renewable energy sources, said changing the goal from fostering oil and gas development to regulating it with an emphasis on protecting people and the environment was huge.

“I feel like it’s kind of like trying to turn a tanker around. It takes a long time and I do not think we’re there yet,” Leathwood said.

The ECMC has approved most of the new permits submitted, Leathwood said. In cases where projects have been held up, she said the communities typically have more money and resources to rally support and hire lawyers. She also believes that so far, the requirement to factor in the cumulative impacts of more drilling hasn’t been fulfilled.

The 2019 law and regulations made important moves toward addressing the effects of oil and gas development on wildlife, water and such biological resources as rare plants and invertebrates, said Joro Walker, senior attorney at Western Resource Advocates. High-priority wildlife habitats mapped by Colorado Parks and Wildlife are now considered when development is proposed, she said.

“That’s incredibly important because before SB181, compliance with CPW’s recommendations were voluntary and there were no substantive requirements in the rules to protect these habitats,” Walker said.

However, Walker said a working group focused on the potential impacts on streams and other waters has yet to be convened.

“At the end of the day, I’d say (SB)181 came out as an important evolutionary bill, but not a revolutionary one,” co-sponsor Foote said in email. “Some folks would’ve preferred it to be revolutionary. But revolutionary doesn’t usually get through the legislative process.”

Mike Freeman, an attorney with Earthjustice, said the ECMC’s requirement that new wells be at least 2,000 feet from homes, schools and child care centers was at the time the toughest setback rule in the country. Then the ECMC included four exceptions, including allowing alternative measures deemed substantially equivalent to a 2,000-foot setback.

“If the legislature really wants to ensure that drilling stays away from people’s homes, they have to adopt strict setbacks that are written into the statute,” Freeman said.

Robbins said the number of oil and gas locations approved within 2,000 feet of residences has dropped. shows that from 2015-18, a total of 719 oil and gas locations were approved within 2,000 feet of residences.

The number dropped by 88% to just 87 locations 2022-2025. One location can have multiple wells.

Referring to the decline in permits approved, ECMC Director Julie Murphy said there were lulls as everyone adjusted course. Also, as the industry innovated, single wells could reach farther requiring fewer wells.

While advocates for more constraints on drilling point to the low number of permits the ECMC has denied, Robbins thinks that’s the wrong way to view the situation.

“We have much greater detailed and protective standards, all of which compels operators to apply for permits that meet our standards and thus, are approvable,” he said. “The number of instances in which the commission felt that it was necessary to deny is much less.”

Robbins acknowledges the industry’s complaints about how long it takes to approve permits. Approving an oil and gas development plan from submission of an application to a hearing took an average of 257 days in 2024 and 297 days in 2025.

“It’s going to take longer when you are making filings that are 10 times more in-depth than they were pre-SB181,” Robbins said.

More regulatory uncertainty ahead?

The time it takes to process permits is one thing. For the oil and gas industry, the uncertainty around change and the potential for even more change is another issue.

Granger of the said industry members have participated in more than 50 rulemakings since 2020 — not all were associated with SB181. Some were before the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission.

Lawmakers, industry representatives and environmentalists struck a kind of truce in 2024 when a bill to phase out new well permits and industry-backed initiatives prohibiting mandates for carbon-free energy sources threatened to reignite the oil and gas wars.

But people unhappy with implementation of the regulations have said updates, such as stricter setbacks, might be in order.

“On the legislative side, we see ideas proposed each year that would be pretty fundamental to the industry. There’s always the possibility that things change,” said Carly West, executive director of the American Petroleum Institute Colorado.

Industry representatives say Colorado’s regulations, considered among the strictest in the nation, have dampened interest in investing in the state and increased the cost of business. Granger said demand for energy is expected to keep rising and she would like to see Colorado production increase to help meet the need.

a Colorado research organization focused on the economy, said despite proven reserves, Colorado fell behind the national pace of oil and gas production in 2021 when new rules took effect. If production had not declined after 2020, the report said the state would have produced 16.6 million more barrels of oil and marginally more natural gas worth a combined $1.3 billion.

Denver-based operates nearly 600 wells in Colorado, all in the Denver-Julesburg Basin with its core activity in Weld County. Getting the full set of approvals for new wells takes longer since SB181 took effect, often 12 to 18 months, depending on the local government, said Katie Gillen, vice president of environmental, health, safety and regulatory affairs for Bison.

“In Weld County, where the local program is mature and predictable, we have been able to continue operating and investing. Where that predictability does not exist, the same rules can create significantly more uncertainty and delay,” Gillen said in an email.

Still, In 2024, Colorado was No. 4 in oil production and No. 8 in natural gas, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported.

Gov. Polis said he hasn’t heard from major oil and gas operators in Colorado that state regulations have prompted them to pull back production. He said the price of oil is the major driver behind decisions on drilling and investments.

Murphy said Colorado’s oil production in 2014 was about 95 million barrels. The total in 2018 was roughly 169 million barrels and ranged from about 160 million barrels to 172 million from 2022 to 2025.

Natural gas production has stayed stable, according to the ECMC. In 2018, the total was 1.85 million cubic feet and about 1.87 million cubic feet in 2024.

The operators in the Denver-Julesburg Basin have largely figured out how to work in Colorado’s regulatory environment, said Ryan Hill, principal analyst at , an energy analytics and data company.

Companies in Colorado are drilling horizontally up to 3 and 4 miles to reach the oil and gas while trying to avoid populated areas, Hill said. The typical length is about 2 miles.

The Colorado basin stands out compared to others across the country in terms of the size and quality of the resource being so close to a significant population center, he said.

“They’re doing whatever it takes to access the resource while still working within SB181 and the requirements of the state,” Hill said.

But working within the parameters of SB181 regulations does cost more, Hill added. He said the majority of the acres in the more populated parts of the basin are held by three large companies with more resources than smaller operators: Chevron, SM Energy, which recently merged with Civitas, and Occidental Petroleum.

While consolidation of companies occurs in most older oil and gas fields such as the Denver-Julesburg, Hill believes that Colorado’s regulations have played a part.

A review by Enverus showed there were 19 to 20 independent companies working in the basin in 2019 that drilled at least 10 wells per year. In 2025, there were six, Hill said. He believes the regulatory environment has affected the outlook of private equity or public companies thinking about buying assets in the basin.

Oil and gas basins across the country experienced “a pretty material drop in activity” during the height of the pandemic but most have rebounded, Hill said. Production in the Denver-Julesburg Basin has continued “to creep up,” he added.

“I think that’s a function of the resources. We do view it in that top-tier status of truly what����ap left,” Hill said.

One said the planned drilling would be “an unconscionable act,” allowing the operator “to exploit fossil fuels at the expense of our community’s health.” Another commenter wrote that the plan “endangers the health of Colorado’s youngest residents,” while a third urged regulators to vote no on fracking “too close to homes and schools!!”

More than 600 and 1,300 emails have poured in over recent weeks, excoriating Crestone Peak Resources’ plan to drill up to 166 wells on 32,000 acres in Arapahoe County, just southeast of Aurora’s suburban Southshore neighborhood.

If the project sounds familiar, it’s because just last summer regulators with the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission — the state body charged with issuing drilling permits to oil and gas operators — approved a comprehensive plan for drilling by Crestone on what is known as Lowry Ranch.

But it wasn’t until last week that the individual well pads — there are eight proposed across Lowry Ranch — began their journey through the approvals process at both the state and county levels. It’s the latest face-off between energy developers and nearby neighbors in Colorado, and it comes six years after state legislators passed a landmark reform law.

The law was designed to give homeowners and communities a greater say in the location and intensity of oil and gas operations. At the time, Gov. Jared Polis said it should end Colorado’s “oil and gas wars.”

But if the ongoing concerns about safety and environmental impacts from energy extraction are any indication of the current state of play, the issue is still far from being resolved. At the Lowry Ranch site, first up for state approval was Crestone’s 17-well State La Plata pad, which won a on Wednesday.

“Many people have arrived at the foregone conclusion that if an operator wants to drill, there’s not much they can do about it,” said Jason Ephraim, a three-year resident of Southshore, sitting in his living room last week. “But we have to do something — we have to fight this project.”

For this stage of the battle, Ephraim, a volunteer with the neighborhood group , comes armed��with a new study from the Colorado School of Public Health, , that draws links between childhood leukemia and proximity to oil and gas wells.

Add to that, last month a Chevron well northeast of Greeley in what was called a “well control” incident. The release injured one person and resulted in the evacuation of nearby homes and an extended closure of Galeton Elementary School.

That April 6 incident in Weld County was a “stark warning” for Sakhawat Hussain, a retired gastroenterologist who has lived in Southshore with his wife for two years. His backyard is a half-mile or so from a proposed 32-well Crestone pad.

“These facilities are inherently dangerous, and accidents are inevitable — it����ap not a question of if, but when,” he said. “Imagine trying to evacuate thousands of residents, many of them children and elderly, in such an event. The risk is simply too great.”

Denver-based Civitas Resources, the parent company of Crestone, says its operations adhere to some of the toughest regulations in the country in Colorado.��Civitas spokesman Rich Coolidge didn’t directly respond to a series of questions The Denver Post sent the company but did provide a statement via email.

“The best management practices, including an electrified production site, high-line power drilling rig, pipeline takeaway, sound walls and many others, showcase the latest technologies and innovation driving our operations today,” he said.

A combustible atmosphere

The U.S. Energy Information Administration in oil production. show the state produced 172 million barrels last year — down from its peak of 192 million barrels in 2019.

All that oil and a growing population has made for an increasingly combustible atmosphere in Colorado. That’s particularly true in newer Front Range neighborhoods built on the edges of vast fields of underground mineral deposits.

The dynamic was thrown into sharp relief in the spring of 2017, when a severed, uncapped flow line that was attached to a well leaked odorless methane and propane into a house in Firestone, causing an explosion that killed two men.

The following year, voters were asked at the ballot box to dramatically boost the setback for new oil and gas development from homes to 2,500 feet. While the measure went down in defeat after the industry spent millions of dollars against it, the sentiment was there for state lawmakers to clamp down on the industry in one way or another.

In 2019, Polis signed Senate Bill 181. The law directed state energy regulators to prioritize protecting public health and safety and the environment over fostering development of the industry, as had been the case for years.

Environmental attorney Mike Foote, a fomer Democratic state representative who helped craft that law, said it was helping keep things in check.

“It’s changed permitting,” said Foote, who represented the Save the Aurora Reservoir group during the Lowry Ranch comprehensive plan hearings last summer. “Prior to SB-181, these new locations were going up right next to neighborhoods frequently. It’s also made it so that the (ECMC regulators) put more conditions on the permits they do approve.”

As a condition of the green light Crestone received last year from the state, the company pledged to use quieter and cleaner electric-powered rigs and equipment at all pad sites on Lowry Ranch. It also agreed to erect sound walls to dampen noise.

But for those worried about living in the shadow of extensive oil and gas operations, caution is the watch word. Hussain, the retired doctor, said his neighbors are particularly concerned about Crestone’s proposed 32-well pad called State Sunlight-Long. It would be closest to the neighborhood and the reservoir — Aurora’s main source of drinking water.

Crestone is to Arapahoe County’s one-mile setback of wells from reservoirs. It says the Sunlight-Long pad is “at lower elevation or downgradient” from the reservoir and “isolated by intervening topography,” thereby minimizing the risk that drilling and extraction activity could contaminate the water body.

But Hussain said he has measured the topography and determined the Sunlight-Long drilling site is nearly 100 feet higher than the Aurora Reservoir.

“Despite this, the county is allowing the pad to be placed just 3,200 feet from the reservoir,” he said. “This undermines the purpose of the setback and exposes the residents and reservoir to unnecessary risk.”

Can safety be assured?

Jill McGranahan, a spokeswoman for Arapahoe County, said no approvals for Lowry Ranch pads have yet been issued by the public works and development department. Arapahoe County’s oil and gas rules, she said, are “some of the strictest in the state,” given in recent years.

“Commissioners and staff are committed to balancing quality of life, health and safety issues with responsible energy development and will evaluate all applications through this lens in accordance with established regulations,” she said.

Of the State La Plata pad that was approved by the ECMC on Wednesday, Coolidge said it “represents Civitas’ best-in-class operations.”

Ephraim, the Southshore neighbor, said his objections are not just about human health. He testified virtually during the State La Plata hearing about potential impacts from oil and gas drilling to wildlife on Lowry Ranch.

“This is a high-priority habitat for pronghorn and mule deer,” he said in an interview afterward.

With a 6-year-old daughter, Ephraim says he finds the “immensely scary.” Between 2002 and 2019, the study looked at 451 children ages 2 to 9 who were diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. They were 1.4 to 2.64 times more likely to live within eight miles or so of a well site than those without cancer.

While the study’s authors stopped short of saying exposure to chemical pollutants from oil and gas sites was the cause of the children’s cancer, they urged state officials to revisit Colorado’s setback requirements for oil and gas development.

“It made everything a lot more real,” Ephraim, 40, said of the study.

In light of that new science and the well release in Weld County last month, he said it’s time to slow down rather than push forward.

Lessons from Erie

A sign of just how intense the resistance to new oil drilling has become is that in southeast Aurora, state regulators have promised Rule 511 hearings — an opportunity for public participation and comment — for all the proposed pads on Lowry Ranch as they roll out over the coming months. Ordinarily, ECMC spokeswoman Kristin Kemp said, a 511 hearing is only held upon the request of a community.

A preview of what’s ahead for Southshore residents may come from Erie, some 40 miles to the north. There, a to drill 26 wells in the vicinity of a planned residential neighborhood in the fast-growing town.

State regulators asked Civitas subsidiary Extraction Oil and Gas to , known as the Draco pad. When the company said a different site was infeasible, however, the ECMC .

Weld County, where the company plans to actually sink its wells, has topped Colorado’s counties for population growth in recent years and is expected to continue doing so. Foote, the environmental lawyer, said it’s more than likely there will be fights like the ones in Erie and Aurora as neighborhoods at the edge of Colorado’s mineral wealth deposits continue to take root.

“Each new well pad adds to the cumulative impacts of the drilling,” he said. “It reinforces the argument that people have been making for years — that you shouldn’t be putting these things close to homes, or close to each other.”

Haley is stepping down as CEO and president of the trade association after nine years, but not before he helps the board of directors find someone to take charge. He said he’s trying to figure out his next career step, but figures it will involve his love of public policy, communications and politics.

Those passions aligned with his 13 years at The Denver Post, the last four of which he served as editorial page editor, as well as his position as director of corporate communications at CoBank.

“Right now, my commitment to the board is to work to help them hire new leadership. That will likely be the end of the year, early next year,” Haley said.

As for why he decided to leave COGA, Haley said it feels like the right time for new leadership and “fresh eyes to come in and help chart a path forward.”

For more than half of his tenure at COGA, Haley has spent a lot of time advocating for his members as the state overhauled the way oil and gas is regulated in Colorado, one of the country’s top oil and gas producers. A 2019 law, Senate Bill 181, mandated the revision of a raft of rules: from the permitting of wells to regulating underground lines to reducing emissions from well sites.

The mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, renamed the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission, was revamped. The law directed the commission, the main regulatory body for the industry, to prioritize protecting public health and safety and the environment when considering oil and gas projects. The law opened more of the process to the public and authorized local governments to write some of their own oil and gas rules.

The number of hearings on new rules has “really ramped up” after approval of Senate Bill 181, Haley said. The hearings, called rulemakings, can take several days to several weeks or even months. The public hearings include testimony from different parties and input from agency staff and the public.

The issues facing the oil and gas industry have evolved since Haley joined COGA. About 200 companies are COGA members, representing more than 90% of the oil and natural gas production in Colorado.

“When I first started in 2015, a lot of the issues the state was dealing with were noise issues and more of what I would say were nuisance issues,” Haley said. “The industry did a really good job of responding to those things using technology and innovation, things like sound walls and quiet fracking fleets.”

Concerns and conflicts grew as drilling picked up in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, a mineral-rich area north and east of Denver that extends into Wyoming. Drilling increased in towns and neighborhoods and communities expanded closer to oil and gas sites.

The Colorado General Assembly and the governor’s office started setting goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to address climate change and air quality and to boost the use of renewable energy.

“The last couple years you’ve got a pretty aggressive legislature passing bills, laws requiring state regulatory agencies to do certain rulemakings,” Haley said.

“He came to the table”

The oil and gas industry and its supporters opposed Senate Bill 181, signed by Gov. Jared Polis in April 2019. At the time, Haley said the governor’s goal of ending the oil and gas wars would mean “removing politics from the technical process of providing energy to Coloradans.”

Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Democrat from Boulder and a prime sponsor of SB181, said Haley and his members were willing to “come to the table.”

“I think Dan had a pretty good sense of the political realities of Colorado and how it’s evolved, and I think that����ap really helpful for an organization like COGA, rather than putting your head in the sand and pretending like the reality is something different,” Fenberg said.

Haley and COGA members were always part of the conversation at the legislature and during rulemaking, Fenberg added. “Did they advocate for the position that I would? No. But they have a role to play.”

Fenberg said the industry was willing to provide technical assistance or feedback when lawmakers needed to understand on-the-ground situations. He appreciated Haley’s approach and “how he came to the table and always wanted to have open communication.”

Chris Wright, founder and CEO of Colorado-based Liberty Energy, which provides hydraulic fracturing and other services, said Haley has been the industry’s “tip of the spear” during all the changes mandated by Senate Bill 181. Wright called the regulation overhaul “emotional political point-scoring” that has frustrated people in the business.

“Dan is a strong, charismatic, principled leader,” Wright said. “I’m very happy he didn’t throw the towel in years ago.”

Despite the new regulations, environmental and community groups and area residents remain concerned about drilling near homes, the impacts on public health and safety and implementation of the rules. Conflicts erupted earlier this year with the industry and others proposing dueling ballot measures and legislation, which were headed off by a deal struck by legislators, environmental groups and legislators.

Another ongoing challenge for the oil and gas industry and other sectors is improving the air quality along the Front Range. The area, which encompasses the epicenter of oil and gas operations in northeastern Colorado, is out of compliance with federal air quality standards for ozone pollution.

Ground-level ozone pollution forms on hot days when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides react in the sunlight. The sources of those include emissions from oil and gas wells and refineries, automobiles, gas-powered lawn and garden equipment and fumes from paint and other industrial chemicals.

Haley believes the more stringent federal standard for ozone of an average 70 parts per billion will be difficult to achieve in Colorado. “That is an economy-wide effort to achieve that standard.”

The oil and gas industry has greatly reduced its emissions overall, Haley said, as a result of regulations and technology. Colorado oil and gas operators expect to meet or exceed the state requirement of cutting nitrogen oxide emissions 30% by 2025.

Reducing nitrogen oxide levels by 50% by 2030 will be tougher, Haley said. “But we have the best and brightest in the industry working on that right now.”

While the state, communities and utilities across Colorado are planning for a transition away from fossil fuels, Haley believes oil and gas will be needed for the foreseeable future.

“So it����ap incumbent upon our industry, especially here in Colorado, to produce the resource cleaner, better and safer than anywhere on the planet,” Haley said.

Haley said the oil and gas industry is still a vital part of Colorado’s economy. He said the industry paid roughly $2 billion in state and local taxes in 2022, with $400 million-plus going to schools and $700 million to police departments, parks and recreations and other services.

“And this is still an industry where you can have a high school diploma and get a good job, buy a home and raise your family here in Colorado,” Haley said. “We should really value these jobs.”

Neighbors worried about potential health and ecological impacts from the project want to say no to the plan after an extensive hearing that’s set to begin Tuesday. The oil and gas producer behind it hopes to install hydraulic fracturing operations at eight sites across Lowry Ranch in Arapahoe County over the next four years.

“The main problem is the effect on public welfare, safety and health,” said Marsha Kamin, who moved to Aurora’s Southshore neighborhood 18 months ago from Michigan. “We’re talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of people.”

As Colorado’s population has ballooned in recent decades, especially in Denver’s northern and eastern suburbs that overlay the mineral-rich Denver-Julesburg Basin, friction has grown between new and expanding neighborhoods and the oil and gas operations set up nearby. Six years ago, the evolving standoff led to an attempt by a citizen group to appreciably increase the required distance between wells and homes through a statewide ballot initiative. Voters shot it down.

Less than a year later, the legislature passed Senate Bill 19-181 and Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law. The law when state officials consider oil and gas development — a profound change from the industry-focused approach Colorado had taken for decades with energy extraction.

Kamin and her neighbors, hundreds of whom are part of the advocacy group, are putting their hopes in Colorado’s five-year-old oil and gas reform law to halt the project. The group has been working to derail Crestone Peak Resources’ proposed fracking plan for the better part of two years.

“It’s disheartening that an industry can have this much power over people,” Kamin said.

But Lowry Ranch opponents may face a bumpy road this week, following a recommendation by the Energy and Carbon Management Commission’s director, Julie Murphy, that the board of commissioners approve the comprehensive area plan for the project.

In her final determination this month, Murphy wrote that Crestone’s plan “complies with all applicable requirements” in the ECMC’s rules.

The commission’s Tuesday hearing is scheduled to go all day, with a second meeting set for Friday if more time is needed. A decision to deny, approve or stay the plan is expected by week’s end, agency spokesman Chris Arend told The Denver Post.

If the overall plan wins approval, more hearings would be needed to consider individual well pads and wells, at both the state and county levels. Though the opponents largely live nearby in Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, the pads would be on state-owned land in an unincorporated part of the county just over Aurora’s city line.

While the ECMC approved and , it has denied applications to drill in recent years. In 2022, it said no to a plan from Kerr-McGee to drill 33 wells near a Firestone neighborhood. The commissioners’ main objection centered on 62 houses that would have been too close to a well pad, violating the state’s minimum 2,000-foot setback from homes and schools.

In January, the commission ��near the border of Erie and Broomfield.

Ann Hussain, who lives in Southshore with a sweeping backyard view of the Aurora Reservoir, said she learned about Crestone’s plans only in the spring. She worries that drilling under the reservoir could result in contaminants leaking into the body of water or into aquifers.

She also worries about air pollution generated at the well pads, one of which would lie less than a mile from a school. One of the eight pads, dubbed State Sunlight-Long, would be just 3,200 feet from her back fence. Thirty-two wells are planned for Sunlight-Long.

“I can’t believe you can take a community and set up an industry right outside these backyards,” Hussain said. “How is it that this can be done so close to people’s homes?”

Plan meets more expansive county buffer

The answer to that question lies in the state’s oil and gas rules, which permit drilling outside a 2,000-foot buffer from schools and neighborhoods. Last fall, Arapahoe County commissioners��, mandating a 3,000-foot buffer between wells and occupied structures, landfills and reservoirs — both existing and planned.

That rule-making followed an attempt by project opponents in April 2023 to get Arapahoe County to impose a six-month halt on issuing new permits to energy companies to drill. The county commissioners voted 3-2 to reject a moratorium.

Rich Coolidge, a spokesman for Crestone parent company Civitas Resources, said not only does the Lowry Ranch plan comply with state rules, it also hews to Arapahoe County’s oil and gas regulations.

“The redundant safeguards and subsequent monitoring have shown that oil and natural gas development can safely occur without impacting groundwater and surface water sources,” Coolidge wrote in an email. “In fact, multiple layers of steel casing and cement underneath more than a mile of rock separate the wellbore from our state’s aquifers and surface water like the Aurora Reservoir.”

Crestone plans to drill 7,500 feet below the surface before running its wells horizontally. Coolidge said wells have “been drilled over a mile below tens of thousands of homes in the Front Range, with no impacts.”

Crestone will implement measures to mitigate impacts at its well sites, he said, including soundwalls, electric-powered drilling rigs, low-emission engines and low-odor mud during the drilling phase. Oil, gas and water will travel off-site by pipe, he said, “to reduce truck traffic during the production phase.”

Dan Haley, the president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the state’s 2019 oil and gas law was meant to “create the most environmentally protective rules in the country … without banning the production of this vital resource.”

“Arapahoe County, and others, have passed regulations that exceed the state’s already stringent protections,” he said, “and our members are meeting those high expectations and producing this resource cleaner and better than most anywhere in the world.”

Congressman focuses on Superfund site

But such assurances haven’t quieted concerns about what lies in the shadow of Lowry Ranch, a by the Colorado State Land Board.

Near to the land board property is the Denver-owned Lowry Landfill, a 480-acre Superfund site at the northeast corner of Quincy Avenue and Gun Club Road, where an estimated . An underground plume of contaminated water has migrated several miles from what is considered one of the country’s most contaminated toxic waste sites.

Some of the proposed well pads’ proximity prompted U.S. Rep. Jason Crow to send a letter to . He asked whether it had studied the potential for extractive seismic activity at the landfill and how that might impact “the safety of the Aurora Reservoir Dam and the reservoir itself.”

The Democratic congressman asked how the agency could “be certain the drilling will not cause fractures and instability that threaten the mitigation strategies EPA has in place at (the landfill).” He also inquired if the agency has considered expanding the boundaries of the Superfund site to include the underground plume.

Coolidge, from Civitas, said the company this year agreed not to drill underneath the Lowry Landfill.

“On claims around seismicity, there has been no reportable seismic activity caused by hydraulic fracturing in Colorado,” he wrote.

But Mike Foote, an environmental attorney representing Save the Aurora Reservoir — and a prime sponsor of SB19-181 when he was a state senator — said “drilling can cause earthquakes.”

The says that while most induced earthquakes are not directly the result of fracking, they can be triggered by the “disposal of waste fluids that are a byproduct of oil production.”

“You don’t want to cause earthquakes, and Crestone hasn’t studied or addressed the issue anywhere close to adequately enough to allow them to drill,” Foote said.

Drilling could begin next year

Matt Sura, an oil and gas attorney who represents local governments and conservation organizations, said the five-year-old law was a critical step in more effectively regulating the energy industry and giving local governments a bigger voice in the process. Sura is not involved in the Lowry Ranch proposal.

“Senate Bill 181 required that there be public hearings on locations (of wells and equipment) and allowed the public to speak to the decision-makers, rather than those decisions (being) made administratively,” he said. “That was a huge sea change.”

Where there is still room for improvement, Sura said, is in state regulators addressing the , specifically when it comes to air pollution. The ECMC will start hearings on rules for that in mid-September.

“I’m hopeful the commission is going to be willing to set limits on oil and gas development and drilling — and the amount of pollution that can be emitted from the oil and gas industry,” he said.

But those rules won’t be in place this week when the ECMC meets to consider the Lowry Ranch comprehensive area plan.

The Front Range for years has been out of compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. In 2022, the EPA designated the nine-county northern Front Range region — including metro Denver — as being in “severe nonattainment,” triggering more federal regulations to clean the air.

That frustrates Kamin, the Southshore resident who watches wildlife move through the neighborhood on their way to and from the rolling hills of Lowry Ranch to the east.

“We’ve been a nonattainment area for years and they want to add more pollution to the area,” she said. “It makes no sense.”

If Crestone’s plan receives the blessing of the ECMC this week, drilling could begin as early as 2025.

Denver Post reporter Judith Kohler contributed to this story

No, he didn’t fall off the wagon during those eight years, nine months and seven days. But his doctor was adamant that alcohol killed him.

In The Denver Post series “Colorado’s Quiet Killer,” about the rise in alcohol consumption in Colorado and its dangerous effects, reporter Meg Wingerter’s one line struck me hardest: “Experts fear Coloradans’ heavier drinking since 2020 will continue to exact a deadly cost in the years to come.” The series noted that deaths from alcohol in the state increased by more than 60% between 2018 and 2021.

We must get help to those in need quickly. The introduction of a bill earlier this month is a promising and big step toward reducing our state’s alcohol problem. It would “collect a fee from alcohol producers and wholesalers” with 80% of the money gathered put into treatment and recovery. My loved one was lucky he had a company that valued its employees and covered his 30-day hospital stay. By providing this health care, we, as a state, could demonstrate that same compassion and wisdom.

If you begin a smoking cessation program, you can read inspirational statistics about how your body and lungs may start to heal after eight hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, all the way up to 15 years. There are no guarantees, of course, but you can anticipate improvement and rejuvenation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the added risk of cancer drops in half after 10 years of cessation. But sometimes, organs can be damaged so badly they can’t bounce back — like hearts and livers doused with alcohol.

Wingerter’s series raised the crucial question: Are we doing enough to raise public awareness about the dangers of excessive drinking, and are public policies in place to support those suffering from alcoholism who want to live another 10 years for their children and their spouses? Some legislators are stepping up to say we can do more, as Wingerter reported on March 13. Sen. Kevin Priola, D-Henderson, introduced the to collect fees to be used for treatment and recovery, as well as prevention and dealing with the fallout that society faces, including fetal alcohol disorders and DUI enforcement.

This bill has the potential to impact — and save — many lives. It is the right thing to do to protect the welfare of our residents, whether they are drinkers or bystanders. Hurt people hurt people.

Few have a bigger dog in this hunt than I did many years ago. But talking about alcoholism and alcohol deaths (whether it’s medical, suicide, or accident) and advocating for treatment options is far different than calling for prohibition or excessive taxes or the death of a multibillion-dollar industry with deep roots in Colorado.

As a young adult, I began attending open AA meetings with my loved one. I wasn’t there to work the program or learn — I thought — so much as to socialize, help make the coffee and serve the monthly birthday cakes. But hearing people share about their drinking made me lose interest in over-imbibing.

Taxes won’t cure alcoholism. My loved one was an old-school 12-stepper and didn’t think anything could cure it. But he was proof it can be treated. And we, as a state, can enable that care.

And this isn’t just about alcoholism. There are all kinds of drinkers, in my experience. Some heavy drinkers can walk away from alcohol with no withdrawal symptoms, but they like to “party” hard and often. Happy drunks, mean drunks, quiet drunks and loud drunks are still at risk of injuring themselves, still capable of killing from behind the wheel, and still capable of damaging their bodies beyond repair.

Is that message getting lost? Does the industry have a responsibility to do more messaging? Yes. It was awareness that changed my attitude toward drinking.

If legislators can create programs that will increase responsibility in alcohol use or reduce drinking by Coloradans (and they should), taxes on alcohol should fund that effort. Like many, I’m not a fan of new taxes and fees, and I believe using taxes as a deterrent meets the definition of a nanny state. But this bill has given me hope.

My loved one would often have to remind me that the second “A” in AA stands for anonymity. The tradition of anonymity in recovery was very important to him, but in a small community where everyone knew everyone’s business, he lived his life as an example.

Many people cite personal responsibility when it comes to drinking. He would have agreed. But he also would have been the first to offer a hand up.

TJ Hutchinson is an editor at The Denver Post who compiles and edits The Open Forum every week.

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Rep. Julie McCluskie, who will lead a supermajority in the House of Representatives as speaker, said affordability will again be a key theme of the session — albeit on the heels of prior major efforts to tamp down costs for housing, health care and child care. The full implementation of that work, and the ability to gauge its effectiveness, is still underway. That’s set this session up as more of a continuation of past work, rather than a launching pad for more new, expansive initiatives.

McCluskie cast wins in November as validation of those efforts and the Democratic program in general.

“It’s incredibly important to recognize that we are returning with larger majorities in part because our voters believe we’re on the right track,” McCluskie said. “I think it’s an affirmation that we have paved the way for a successful future.”

While the legislature will continue its work on those big, perennial issues, Senate President Steve Fenberg and McCluskie said they also plan a slew of health care and civil rights protections in the realm of gender-affirming care, contraception access and LGBTQ rights.

Affordable housing

As Coloradans continue to face an unaffordable housing crunch, McCluskie singled out tax incentives for first-time homebuyers as possible legislative balms. But it will be part of a larger effort to address the issue: Other lawmakers have talked about eviction protections and slowing the growth of rent, while policymakers watch the launch of the affordable housing program voters passed with Proposition 123.

More broadly, the effort to address housing will also feature a debate about the state’s role in what����ap traditionally been local matters, like development and zoning, McCluskie and Fenberg said Monday. Some housing advocates and experts have called for that very debate, citing the need for a uniform approach to what is a statewide housing crisis. Fenberg echoed those concerns, questioning why regional problems like homelessness are handled “almost entirely” by cities and local governments.

Though he couldn’t yet provide specifics on pending legislation or the direction of that debate, Fenberg said state officials want to ensure that future development is intentional and focuses “less about sprawl (and) more about density in transit corridors.”

“Right now, how we use land — who builds what, what they’re allowed to build, how it����ap zoned — that����ap almost entirely left up to local communities,” Fenberg said. “We’re not going to get rid of that, we’re not proposing anything radical here that will change that scenario completely. But we do think the state has a role to play if you think about the dollars we’ve started to invest in housing.”

Local governments are bracing for that debate. Kevin Bommer, the executive director of the Colorado Municipal League, told The Post last week that his group was ready to “go to the mat” over local control of zoning and development.

“The General Assembly shouldn’t act like a city council,” Bommer said, “and the governor’s elected to be governor, not the mayor.”

Clean air and eyes on water

Fenberg said members are working on several bills to reduce ozone emissions and aiming to boost air quality in the state.

First, officials need to separate out what is in state control and what isn’t, while also balancing that regulations come with economic and personal costs. Fenberg cited the temporary closure of the Suncor refinery��specifically: It may lead to cleaner air for a few months, but it may also mean people already under the thumb of inflation may pay more for energy.

Lawmakers will also continue to look at the oil and gas industry, though Fenberg said those details aren’t yet finished. He mentioned incentivizing the electrification of drill rigs to tamp down on pre-production drilling emissions as one likely effort. Regulators have also been working on new rules for energy production, a product of 2019’s , and lawmakers will be watching to see if it accomplishes what they wanted, he said.

“I want to be careful and make sure the appropriate things are at the regulatory side so that we’re not over-prescribing at the legislative level,” Fenberg said.

Water remains a defining aspect of life in the West, and Colorado’s water crisis remains as acute as ever. Fenberg called it “a bit of an existential threat” to the state’s economy and its communities. Conservation, drought resilience and infrastructure efforts will be big aims, though the legislative leaders did not have specific policies yet.

“One of the biggest frustrations when we talk about water quantity is certainly the diverse interests that come to the table,” McCluskie said. “This isn’t a Republican and Democrat issue, this is a Western Slope and eastern slope issue. It is an ag economy, a tourist economy and outdoor recreation economy interest.”

Right now, the goal is to convene stakeholders to find common ground across those sometimes disparate interests, she said. And the bevy of new lawmakers also need time to brush up on the dissertation-worthy topic of western water law. McCluskie said state Rep. Karen McCormick, who will chair the Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee, has been putting together a “water boot camp” for her members.

Public safety

Colorado’s crime rates and broader public safety concerns were ever present on the campaign trail last year. They will feature prominently during the session, too, Fenberg said, with a particular focus on the “root causes” of crime and other issues that hurt “the health of our local communities.”

There again was a pledge to build upon what Democratic majorities have worked on in recent years.

“That����ap going to be continued work in investments on behavioral health, addressing economic inequalities — because in a lot of ways that is a foundational causing factor — and of course homelessness and addiction and other areas we’ve been working on,” he said.

But he also previewed “common sense” adjustments to current laws, like tightening penalties for auto thefts. Gov. Jared Polis called for a similar change in the fall.

Lawmakers have been discussing more gun control measures as well, in the wake of the Club Q shooting in November. Fenberg said legislators were working on a “package of bills” to address gun violence, targeting the state’s red flag law, age requirements and waiting periods.

Editor’s note: This represents the opinion of The Denver Post editorial board, which is separate from the paper’s news operation. Read more endorsements here.

Colorado received a new seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in large part because of the Front Range’s booming growth, so it is fitting that the new district be centered on the sprawling suburbs north of Denver where blue-collar Coloradans have flocked for lower-priced housing, job opportunities and a more suburban and rural quality of life.

We hope voters from Commerce City to Greeley will support Yadira Caraveo to be Colorado’s next congresswoman – a strong voice in Washington, D.C., for all of Colorado, but especially the district where she has lived since second grade.

Caraveo is not a typical politician. She is a pediatrician who, after her residency in New Mexico, returned home to work at a private practice in Adams County that predominately serves low-income patients on Medicaid. She took an interest in politics while advocating for health care policy, including Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and collective bargaining for health care workers. She tried advocacy from the outside with organizations like the Early Childhood Partnership of Adams County and a governor-appointed commission on mental health transformation.

“Despite that advocacy, what was getting really frustrating for me in clinic every day was how difficult it was for families to really live the life I had lived growing up,” she said, noting her father was able to provide for her family with a single construction job. “It was regular conversations with patients in clinic about their parents working three to four jobs and how difficult it was to have kids during that, whether they had health insurance with their work and if not, if Medicaid was going to cover them when it was constantly being slashed in funding.”

She successfully ran for Colorado state House District 31, representing Thornton, in 2018, saying she was ready to fight against the insurance industry and other health care systems that she said had repeatedly failed her patients.

As a state lawmaker, she successfully pushed for mandatory sick leave policies and a nicotine tax that helped fund a universal preschool program about to be launched statewide.

But it wasn’t just about health care policy; Caraveo said at her practice, she could tell by the air quality and visibility whether there was going to be a rush of patients suffering asthma attacks.

In the legislature, she was a prime sponsor of Senate Bill 181, which overhauled Colorado’s regulation of the oil and gas industry, including methane emissions and venting and flaring. It����ap that legislation that makes her most vulnerable in a district where the oil and gas industry is a major employer and revenue generator.

The Denver Post editorial board supported the legislation in 2019 because we thought it returned balance to the state-wide regulation of oil and gas operations, a heavy industrial process that was increasingly taking place adjacent to suburban neighborhoods in Congressional District 8 and beyond.

It����ap a policy that puts her sharply at odds with her opponent, Colorado State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, who opposed Senate Bill 181 and is a champion of the oil and gas industry, noting its importance for the economy in her district, the state, and national security.

Kirkmeyer is a fiscal conservative who is right to be concerned about government spending, the debt, and the deficit. Her track record as a Weld County commissioner of getting the county out of debt and shoring up the pension is impressive.

However, we were disappointed she didn’t bring concrete examples of how she would help right the fiscal ship in Washington, D.C. There’s no doubt, however, that Kirkmeyer would be more likely to oppose spending bills, particularly on Medicaid, than Caraveo would, emphasizing that reduced spending is one of her top priorities along with securing the southern border.

Finally, Caraveo impressed us with her commitment to reproductive freedom for women in America.

Kirkmeyer described herself as a pro-life Catholic woman who believes life begins at the moment of conception and said her priorities would always be with protecting unborn children.

“To me, it is about saving lives,” she said, adding that she could support an abortion ban at 20 weeks rather than at the moment an egg is fertilized. “I’m not an all-or-nothing person.”

Caraveo might be the polar opposite on the issue, saying she thinks Republicans have forfeited their right to demand a middle ground on the issue, having driven the end of Roe v. Wade which was the compromise allowing abortion restrictions at the point a fetus would be viable outside the womb but protecting a woman’s right to end a pregnancy before that point.

We need a voice in Congress like Caraveo’s, whether it’s fighting for reproductive freedom or for the health and quality of life of the hardworking residents in her district.

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Priya Nanjappa announced late last week that she is taking a job as vice president of conservation programs at the National Parks Conservation Association. Her last day at the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission will be Tuesday.

Nanjappa served as the commissioner with experience in environmental protection, wildlife protection or reclamation. Her replacement will have the same kind of background.

The five members represent a mix of environment, industry, public health and local government interests.

Nanjappa helped put in place robust protections for Colorado as part of the implementation of Senate Bill 181, a 2019 law that revamped state oil and gas regulations, Dan Gibbs, executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources said in a statement.

“Her knowledge and experience helped to shape policy that will now deliver protections to all of Colorado,” said Jeff Robbins, chairman of the commission.

Gov. Jared Polis named Nanjappa and four others to the commission in June 2020. The commission’s change from a volunteer body to a full-time professional one was part of SB 181’s mandate to prioritize protecting public health, safety and the environment when regulating oil and gas.

Since their appointment, the five commissioners have approved a series of new rules, including financial assurances companies must provide to ensure well sites will be cleaned up when production stops; expanded opportunities for the public to weigh in on drilling proposals; more analysis of proposed well sites intended to protect public health and safety; and new requirements to cut emissions.

From the start, the new full-time commission was at the center of intense debate. Proponents of stronger regulations have pushed for quicker adoption of new rules and have argued that the intent of SB 181 is undermined by too many exceptions written into the regulations.

The industry and supporters have said Colorado’s previous rules were among the strongest in the country and that new requirements have hampered drilling, undercutting the state’s economy.

Nanjappa’s resignation came a day after the commission denied an application by Kerr-McGee, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, to drill 33 wells near a neighborhood in Firestone. Kerr-McGee agreed to additional safeguards recommended by state health officials, but Nanjappa and three other commissioners voted against the proposal because of concerns about the impacts on area residents.

Nanjappa said she enjoyed the work and the opportunity “to engage with all of the incredibly passionate stakeholders.”

The state Senate will vote on Nanjappa’s successor. COGCC spokeswoman Megan Castle said it’s unclear when a replacement�� will be named.

Polis is accepting applications for the position at��

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission voted 4-1 Thursday against plans by Kerr-McGee to drill 33 oil and gas wells near a neighborhood in Firestone. One well pad would have had 26 wells and a second would have had seven.

The commissioners’ main objection was that 62 homes would be within 2,000 feet of the�� 26-well site. New oil and gas rules mandated by a 2019 law requires that new wells be at least 2,000 feet from homes and schools unless certain conditions are met.

Kerr-McGee contended that it had complied with the exceptions allowed by providing protections “substantially equivalent”�� to a 2,000-foot buffer. Four of the commissioners disagreed.

Kerr-McGee, a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum, Colorado’s largest oil and gas producer, revamped its proposal to reduce the number of homes within the 2,000-foot distance and offer alternative locations after the commission requested the changes in a Feb. 16 hearing.

The commissioners voiced frustration in Thursday’s hearing that the revisions didn’t go far enough.

“I don’t feel like you heard, at least me, when I said, ‘Is there a place you can move further away and leave some of your minerals stranded?’ And you didn’t bring that forth,” said commission member Karin McGowan.

Under Kerr-McGee’s original proposal, 89 homes in the Falcon Point at Saddleback subdivision would have been within 2,000 feet of the larger well pad and seven homes would have been within that distance from the smaller pad.

The company’s revised plan would have shrunk the larger site, the McGavin pad, and removed 27 homes from the 2,000-foot radius by removing some of the tanks from the pad. The seven-well Columbine pad still would have been within 2,000 feet of seven homes.

Commission member Bill Gonzalez said the protective measures Kerr-McGee planned to take, including using an electric drilling rig and piping in water to cut truck trips, would have provided safeguards similar to drilling farther away. He was the lone vote for the project.

“We’re disappointed with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s decision to deny our permits with the Longs Peak development,” Kerr-McGee spokeswoman Jennifer Brice said in a statement. “Our partners in Firestone want us to operate in their town, and our next steps include reviewing all available options to develop the mineral resources Coloradans rely on for their energy needs.”

A 2019 report by the state health department said people living within 2,000 feet of oil and gas sites have experienced certain short-term health impacts. Laurie Anderson, on the Broomfield City Council, said in the hearing that the city receives hundreds of complaints about headaches, breathing problems and other ailments from people who live near well sites.

The 2,000-foot buffer was among the new rules approved by the COGCC. The 2019 state law, Senate Bill 181, changed the commission’s mission from balancing public health and the environment with the development of oil and gas to regulating oil and gas in a way that protects the public health, the environment and wildlife.

Opponents of Kerr-McGee’s project argued that if the commission approved the drilling, it would undermine the intent of SB 181. The legislation was passed after conflicts between energy companies and growing communities along the Front Range increased and voters rejected a 2018 ballot proposal for 2,500-foot setbacks between wells and homes.

“Senate Bill 181 was a reaction against neighborhood drilling and was designed in large part to keep that from happening again,” said Mike Foote, a former legislator and one of the bill’s sponsors. “When you put something like that close to people’s homes, there will be detrimental effects to public health safety and welfare.”

Area homeowners and people who live close to well sites in other areas have urged the commission to reject Kerr McGee’s proposal.

“We would have definitely thought twice about purchasing here had we known what we know now,” said Kathleen Scott, who moved with her husband, Mike, into the Firestone subdivision in November 2021.

However, others said the oil and gas industry has long been an important part of Colorado’s economy and said with rising gas prices and Russia, one of the world’s major oil producers, waging war in Ukraine, now is not the time to discourage domestic production.

“In the face of a supply crisis and rising energy costs here and abroad, this is the absolute wrong approach. This application is an example of the highest standards of energy development anywhere in the world,” said Dan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said in a statement.

Lynn Granger, president of the American Petroleum Institute-Colorado, said the U.S. needs more oil and natural gas, with skyrocketing energy prices, inflation and political instability. That won’t be possible in Colorado if regulators “choose to flout their own standards” and reject permits, she added.

Firestone officials said the town has a history of balancing oil and gas production with other land uses. The town planning commission recommended denying Kerr-McGee’s land-use permit, but the town trustees approved it, saying the company responded to their concerns.

Kerr-McGee’s agreement with the town included the company giving Firestone a 78-acre parcel of land. Town Manager A.J. Krieger said the land deal and the agreement with Kerr-McGee were not linked.

But Jeff Robbins, the oil and gas commission chairman, noted that as part of the agreement, Firestone said it would not object to the company’s application to the state.

Updated at 8:28 p.m. March 10 to add comment from Kerr-McGee and the American Petroleum Institute-Colorado.