Senate vote on oil, gas bill postponed

DENVER — For the second time in as many days, lawmakers in the Colorado Senate chose to postpone a final vote on Senate Bill 181, a measure that would overhaul the way the oil and gas industry is regulated in the state.

If approved by the Senate during Wednesday’s session, SB-181 would then go to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk to be signed into law.

The bill, sponsored in the Senate by Majority Leader Stephen Fenberg, D-Boulder, seeks to shift the makeup and mission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from a group tasked with fostering oil and gas development to a group focused on regulating the industry. The bill would also give local government more power to enforce land-use and zoning rules, as well as increased setback requirements. New limits on “forced pooling” and beefed up air-quality-monitoring requirements would also be included.

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Pushing the final vote back a day allows Senators more time to consider amendments added to SB-181 by the House of Representatives last week. Those amendments were added, in part, to assuage concerns from the oil and gas industry.

One of the most significant amendments relates to the makeup of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the industry’s main governing body in the state. The amended bill will shrink the commission from seven appointed members to five, and seats on the commission would be full-time and paid rather than volunteer positions. The industry has argued that professional commissioners would make more informed decisions on issues such as drilling permits than their volunteer counterparts.