January 8, 2016

Editorial: Fracking, solar measures would further divide Colorado

Here we go again.

Even as the University of Colorado Boulder releases a study highlighting the importance of the oil-and-gas sector to the Colorado economy, extreme new ballot measures are being proposed that would devastate the industry in Colorado.

First the numbers: The Business Research Division at CU’s Leeds School of Business estimates that the oil-and-gas industry generated $31.7 billion for Colorado’s economy during 2014, including 38,650 direct jobs and an average wage of $105,000.

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Much of that impact is felt in Weld County, which produced 86 percent of the state’s oil and 25 percent of natural gas, according to the report. All told, oil was produced in 34 counties, while natural gas was produced in 38 counties.

Numbers like those contribute to the state’s job base, property values, construction, retail and restaurant sales and various tax revenues.

But such an impact is lost on backers of 11 anti-fracking ballot measures filed recently with the Colorado secretary of state by a Boulder-based group, Coloradans Resisting Extreme Energy Development. The proposed constitutional amendments each would require signatures from 98,492 registered Colorado voters to make it onto the ballot. They would create mandatory setbacks, grant local municipalities more control over hydraulic fracturing or even ban the practice.

But opponents of hydraulic fracturing aren’t the only ones proposing ill-advised restrictions on a form of energy development. Weld County commissioners are considering restricting solar farms to land zoned industrial, not agricultural — effectively killing solar farms within the county.

This proposal is no less misguided than the proposed anti-fracking ballot measures.

We’re more than a little tired and frustrated at the continued battles between traditional energy and renewables. If federal lawmakers can work out a compromise to extend renewable-energy tax credits while also removing the ban on energy exports — as happened at year-end — why can’t traditional energy and clean-tech backers in Colorado come together?

Our state offers the best of both worlds: a strong traditional-energy sector that brings tens of billions of dollars into the state’s economy and a booming clean-tech sector that generates jobs for the energy of the future.

Yes, more work remains to be done on regulation of fracking. But the answer is not extreme, job-killing measures. Proponents of the anti-fracking ballot issues should be forced to seek signatures at the very doors of the 38,650 people whose jobs they would eliminate.

Here we go again.

Even as the University of Colorado Boulder releases a study highlighting the importance of the oil-and-gas sector to the Colorado economy, extreme new ballot measures are being proposed that would devastate the industry in Colorado.

First the numbers: The Business Research Division at CU’s Leeds School of Business estimates that the oil-and-gas industry generated $31.7 billion for Colorado’s economy during 2014, including 38,650 direct jobs and an average wage of $105,000.

Much of that impact is felt in Weld County, which produced 86 percent of the state’s oil and 25 percent…

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