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December 15, 2011 06:09 PM UTC

Colorado Mesa University Establishes Alternative Energy Program

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  • by: Konola

Tim Foster has friends in high places.

In 2011 Colorado’s legislature tried to deal with the fact that counties impacted by oil and gas development were seeing PILT money lowered by the amount of federal lease money they received.  

The introduction to the bill reads

“counties would not be able to fund important services and programs for citizen enjoyment of public lands without maximizing payment in lieu of taxes funding to Colorado.”

So the purpose of the bill was to help cities and counties who were impacted by oil and gas activities. How are cities and counties impacted? Schools have an influx of kids, during the boom cycle when there is a corresponding increase in workers from out of state. Roads are torn up by heavy equipment. There are housing shortages. There is an increase in respiratory health problems when gas is flared, or toxins evaporating from oil and gas pits become air borne.

Mesa County set up a Mineral Lease Board to implement the bill. The bill requires that a Mineral Lease Board include at least one county commissioner, but representatives of the county could not be a majority of the board. The board was to be appointed by county commissioners, who could also remove a member that they had appointed.

The duties of the board are

“to distribute all of the funding the district receives from the department of local affairs to areas within the district that are socially or economically impacted by the development, processing, or energy conversion of fuels and minerals leased under the Federal Mineral Lands Leasing Act of February 25, 1920, as amended.”

The county representative to the Mesa County Mineral Lease Board is Craig Meis (oil and gas industry suck-up). Two other representatives are David Ludlam  (Spokesman for the oil and gas industry) and Craig Springer (President of Home Loan Bank.) Note that the board has two members who have close ties to the oil and gas industry, but nobody from School District 51, or the city of Grand Junction, or the community of Whitewater, or the community of Mesa  or the city of Fruita, or the city of Palisade, or the health care community, or anybody actually impacted by oil and gas activity in Mesa County.

So it is probably no surprise that all of the money coming to Mesa County under this bill is going to our local “University ” and none of it is going to help K-12 with their funding; none of it is going to local hospitals or other health care professionals; none of it is going to repair damaged roads; none of it is going to impacted cities.

There were 10 applicants, but all of the money went to one place. To be fair, there is some question about whether this bill actually got around the Federal problem it was trying to address. There is some possibility that the funds will have to be repaid, and the structure of the program at the “University” will make it easier to refund the money should it become necessary.

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