October 09, 2015 04:01 PM UTC

That Cow Don't Hunt - And Other Fracktured Facts from Your Friendly Frackers

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• by: PiceanceDog

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Energy in Depth mouthpiece (twitterer, primarily it seems) Randy Hildreth was serving up some Texas-sized bullshit in his recent de rigueur hit-piece.

CELDF Threat of Bankrupting Communities with Fracking Bans Comes to Colorado

The short of it is local communities paying to defend their own ordinances and going bankrupt is because groups like the Western Energy Alliance or some such similar are suing them.

Get it? The oil and gas industry is suing local governments over ordinances those governments enact, then is blaming the local community members and city councils.

Furthermore, all this is happening in the context of the state just issuing draft rules for siting some certain very limited number of oil and gas facilities.

Or rather the state has issued draft regulations for maybe talking with local governments about siting facilities.

Predictably, like flies on dung, the oil and gas folk–led by former Denver Post editorial page editor Dan Haley–are decrying the idea of having to interact with local governments as draconian over-regulation bound to ruin some 200,000 jobs and plunge the state into eternal darkness. To paraphrase, but only slightly.

Meanwhile the good people actually living among the flaming wells, fracking sites, traffic, noise, fumes, air pollution, dust, spills, mishaps, and it-really-was-no-big-deal-everything-is-fine reality of the gaspatch have pointed out the regulations fall far short of what is actually needed.

Leslie Robinson, president of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance in Garfield County, said in a news release, “We’re getting thrown under the bus here. We saw this process as an opportunity to address the problem of big oil and gas facilities being sited close to homes and communities. Instead, the (oil and gas) Commission is proposing to basically enshrine companies’ right to keep doing exactly that.”

It is also the case that the regulation thus fall far short of what is needed to stop such as the Community Citizens Rights Network and Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund from finding fertile ground in which to organize.

Now, it could be that the strategy being proposed by these groups is not the best. We can likely anticipate some sharp discussion on that matter as the ballot calendar looms.

Local communities have to consider local costs. At least many will undoubtedly make that decision. So it could also be that some strategies are better for some places than for others.

And not all Colorado faces drilling battles over land currently under state jurisdiction. Other tools and tactics are probably more appropriate on federal public lands for instance.

But the bunk being dumped on Colorado citizens by the like of Energy in Depth is really just a big old steaming pile of nonsense. And like a Lone Star State cow-pie stinking up your doorstep, the poop they are peddling is an affront to Colorado sensibilities.

Simply put, we don’t need that shit here.