May 29, 2010 06:02 PM UTC

Wadhams Acknowledges Colorado is Not Under the Sea

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• by: ClubTwitty

(Good gas patch stuff from CT as always – promoted by Danny the Red (hair))

KDVR has an article posted about Colorado’s oil and gas regulations, and the continuing attempt by the state GOP and it’s candidates to tar Bill Ritter, whom they–apparently–still think is running for office.

Predictably the ongoing tragedy wrought by criminal negligence in the Gulf of Mexico has inserted itself into the debate.

On the flip side, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, who’s been criticized as much as anyone after imposing stiffer regulations last year on oil and gas exploration in the state, is speaking up, especially as a chorus of Republicans, namely the two trying to replace him, continue to turn Ritter’s revised oil and gas rules into a campaign issue.

…”People are going to have a much more difficult time criticizing these rules because we’re being good stewards of the environment. The BP spill in the Gulf is the exclamation point on what happens when stewardship wanes, when it goes away. We didn’t do that, we were stewards. And, yes, it was a fight with the industry but it was a fight worth having for us because I can feel comfortable that we’ve got the right permitting process in place.”

Ritter’s comments drew a strong rebuke Friday from Colorado GOP chair Dick Wadhams.

“I think that’s one of the most preposterous and reprehensible statements Ritter has made through his entire failed term as governor,” Wadhams said. “I’d like him to point to an accident or spill in Colorado comparable to the horrible spill in the Gulf. For him to try to justify his job-killing energy regulations by equating Colorado’s energy industry to what is going on with BP in the Gulf is a low standard even by Ritter’s low standards.”

Such an unmitigable disaster would actually be a physical impossibility in Colorado, as it’s been quite a few years since the state was under 5,000 feet of water, nor is the state sitting on top of a wealth of Louisiana Crude.

But when you need a talking point you need a talking point, and no one expects Mssrs. Wadhams, Maes, and McInnis to be bound by truth, reality or geographic fact.

It is–after all–McInnis and Wadhams who have long touted the absurd notion that Colorado’s rules plunged the worldwide energy sector into recession.

No where in the United States–ever–has there been an accident of the magnitude we are seeing, as oil continues to gush into the Gulf, like the BP blowout. Wadhams comments are akin to saying that Colorado should not be concerned about public safety because there has been no incident in Colorado ‘comparable to 9/11.’

But Colorado–like most of the gaspatch–is plagued by spills, mishaps, poisoned (and flammable) water, declining air quality, and threatened wildlife populations–all courtesy of the oil and gas industry. Most go unreported by the industry–itself a violation of statute and the public trust, but those that do get noticed are cause enough for alarm.  

Meanwhile–in spite of their oft-repeated shtick about ‘driving the industry from the state’–natural gas remains glutted on the market, and a glutted market means less profits, which means companies drill less.  They lay down rigs and lay off workers to protect their gross profit margins.  

For a party that pretends to understand basic economic principles one might imagine they would get this simple fact: companies control supply, when the price of a barrel or a cubic foot makes it uneconomical to drill, they don’t.

Many diaries have been posted (quite a few by yours truly) highlighting the massive new shale plays–the Marcellus, the Haynesville, the Barnett–that are closer to the market, closer to infrastructure, and currently more profitable to drill–all factors wholly unrelated to Colorado’s regulations. Meanwhile a number of those states are looking to Colorado’s rules as something they might borrow from in implementing their own stronger standards.  

Oil and gas development is on the rise again in Colorado.  That’s how the market works.  To imagine that companies would walk away from the billions in infrastructure improvements, hundreds of thousands of leased acres in known production zones, and what are still–by all accounts–massive natural gas reserves because they have to use pit liners or consider wildlife impacts is, on its face, preposterous.  

That Wadhams & crew would accuse Ritter of politicizing the tragedy in the Gulf, especially when we can all follow the half-term Governor from Alaska on Twitter (should we be so masochistic) is shameful.  

But we’ve come to expect nothing less from Dick.