Oil & Gas Setback Backers Look Ahead To Dem. Colo. Legislature

ACROSS COLORADO – By Taran Volckhausen for The Colorado Independent. The defeat of Proposition 112, Colorado’s oil and gas drilling setback measure, followed a national trend. Voters in Arizona and Washington, like those in Colorado, turned down measures that would have curbed fossil fuel development.

The defeats “underscore the difficulty of tackling a global problem like climate change at the state and local level, where huge sums of money poured in,” The Washington Post wrote in its post-election analysis Wednesday.

But that doesn’t mean pro-renewable energy, anti-fracking forces are giving up in Colorado.
Grassroots activists are “going to keep fighting,” said Russell Mendell, a spokesperson for Colorado Rising, which backed Prop. 112.

“We are going to hold our elected leaders accountable, and do all we can to protect Colorado communities from the dangers of fracking,” said Mendell, who points out that although the measure failed, at least 825,000 voters across the state supported it. With 100 percent of counties reporting, the unofficial vote count Wednesday was 907,678 votes in support of the measure and 1,172,171 opposed.

The measure would have expanded on existing oil and gas drilling setbacks from 500 feet from homes and 1,000 feet from “high occupancy” buildings to a mandatory 2,500 feet.

Colorado Rising took in $1.3 million from small donations and national environmental organizations such as 350.org and Food and Water Action Fund.

That amount was dwarfed by anti-112 Protect Colorado, an oil-and-gas-backed issue committee, which raised $41 million in contributions and blanketed the airwaves with anti-Prop. 122 messages, saying the measure would ban oil and gas development and cause the state to lose hundreds of thousands jobs.

READ MORE in The Colorado Independent

Image: A drill site in Weld County across the county line from houses in Boulder County. (Photo by Adam Stielstra)