April 20, 2012 12:02 PM UTC

Mesa County Commissioners, Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Global Oil Companies

• 7 Comments
• by: Konola

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

This week the Mesa County Commissioners passed a resolution regarding development of Colorado’s oil shale. Everything about this resolution should raise questions about how Mesa County is governed and who Commissioners represent.

First, the resolution was written in a closed door meeting in Vernal, Utah. Craig Meis met with elected officials from counties in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Nobody knows who called this meeting, but there is a better than average chance that it was called, and funded by companies and investors in oil shale plays.

Colorado has Sunshine laws requiring transparency in law making. According to the Office of Legislative Services (OLS),

“The Colorado Sunshine Law generally requires that any state or local governmental body that meets to discuss public business or to take formal action do so in meetings that are open to the public.”

Based on my reading Colorado’s Sunshine Law, this meeting would have been in violation of Sunshine Laws had more than one Mesa County Commissioner attended the meeting.  Although it technically was not a violation, since Meis was the only Commissioner from Mesa County to attend, it was certainly unethical given that the result was a resolution that is being rammed through several Colorado Counties.

Colorado Sunshine laws also require that notice of a meeting be posted in a public place at least 24 hours prior to the meeting. I am unaware of any public notice of the meeting held in Vernal, Utah. In the case of the County Commissioner’s meeting, notice of the resolution was posted on a Friday, with the meeting held on the following Monday morning. Again, the letter of the law appears to have been followed, but I’d venture a guess that very few citizens knew that this resolution was going to be passed without any public hearings other than a brief comment period before the commissioners took their vote.

In February, the BLM requested public comment on their draft “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Oil Shale and Tar Sands” (PEIS). The resolution passed by the County Commissioners is in response to the request for comments, and includes political bashing of the Obama administration.

This PEIS was the result of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups. Thanks to some vigilance on the part of a community organizer, members of local environmental groups saw both the resolution and notice of meeting.

The BLM offered several alternatives in the PEIS, but preferred one that limits the leasing of federal land for the purpose of oil shale development to 461,965 acres, of which 35,308 acres are in Colorado. BLM director  Bob Abbey said,

“The preferred alternative continues our commitment to encouraging research, development, and demonstration projects so that companies can develop technologies that can lead to economic and commercial viability. Because there are still many unanswered questions about the technology, water use, and impacts of potential commercial-scale oil shale development, we are proposing a prudent and orderly approach that could facilitate significant improvements to technology needed for commercial-scale activity.  If oil shale is to be viable on a commercial scale, we must take a common-sense approach that encourages research and development first.”

To hear Commissioner Craig Meis, one would believe that the BLM is shutting down all possibility of development of oil shale. It makes one wonder if Meis has invested money in oil shale, which would add conflict of interest to his ethical lapses regarding transparency in decisions regarding oil shale. His argument that industry needs consistency in rules is a bit amusing, since no regulations are changing-only the pace of research and development is impacted by this PEIS.

Even more disturbing was the lack of respect shown by Meis to people who showed up to testify against this resolution. At one point he snickered and laughed when Benita Phillips, President of Western Colorado Congress of Mesa County, mentioned the work of Dr. Theo Colborn, founder of TEDX and an internationally recognized scientist. TEDX is a not-for-profit that compiles and disseminates scientific information about how exposure to chemicals interferes with the development of children, both inside and outside of the womb. No mother laughs at anything that poses a risk to her kids. Shame on you Craig Meis.