A playground and a bike path are nestled between a row of homes in the Thornton neighborhood of North Creek Farms. Roughly 200 feet away is an oil and gas drilling site that is leaking hydrocarbons like methane.
environment
News
Leading Bennet Challenger Doesn’t Believe in Climate Change: ‘It’s Called Weather’
In a YouTube video released earlier this month, Colorado U.S. Senate candidate and state Rep. Ron Hanks (R-Cañon City) said he does not believe that climate change is a real issue.
News
Fact Check: Why Environmental Regulations Are Not To Blame for High Gas Prices
In Colorado, leading Republican figures and oil and gas industry executives are claiming stricter environmental regulations have caused gas prices to increase. However, an examination of that claim shows that it is a misleading argument.
News
Drill baby drill? Colorado oil producers have nearly 3,000 approved permits
For the second time in 10 days, a major Colorado oil producer told shareholders that it’s unlikely to ramp up production amid skyrocketing global energy prices, promising instead to funnel much of the additional cash flow into investors’ pockets.
News
Enviro Groups Want CO Employee Retirement Fund To Divest From Russian Fossil Fuel Companies
A new report has found that the retirement fund for employees of the state of Colorado has over $8.7 million in investments in Russian oil and gas companies. In light of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, environmental advocacy groups and fund members in Colorado are calling the fund to divest.
News
CO Passes ‘Strongest in the Nation’ Oil and Gas Rules, Enviro Groups Worry They Are Still ‘Inadequate’
Yesterday the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), the state’s regulatory body for oil and gas activities, passed a major reform of rules to reduce risks posed by orphaned wells in the state, the first such Colorado reform in 28 years.
News
Fact Check: Oil and Gas Industry Downplays Problem of Low-Producing Wells
Dan Haley is president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, a group representing the state’s oil and gas industry. Last week, Haley appeared on Kim Monson’s Colorado KLZ 560 radio show to discuss the state revising its oil-and-gas-well bonding rules and low-producing wells.
News
Garfield & Weld Counties Have Spent Nearly $2 Million Fighting Oil & Gas Pollution Regulations Since 2019
Over the past three years, Garfield and Weld Counties, in northern Colorado, spent nearly $2 million total to fight government regulation on oil and gas pollution, the bulk of it doled out by Garfield County to lobbyists and lawyers, according to an analysis of county budgets by environmental groups and the Colorado Times Recorder.
Opinions
How Will The Great Renewable Land Rush Impact Eastern Colorado?
In this, the third piece in my series on The Great Renewable Land Rush in Yuma County, Colorado (read the first two here and here) I’ll provide some background on the logistical machinations behind what could prove to be the most significant revolution in land use since the homestead act invited thousands of settlers to break sod in a semi-arid region that had never before seen a plow.
Opinions
State Lawmakers, Polis Should Rein in Colorado Oil and Gas Commission
On February 1, 2022 the federal government announced the first infusion of tens of millions of dollars that will be sent to Colorado to clean up orphaned oil and gas wells. Our U.S. Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennett (D-CO) celebrated the incoming funds. Not only is it a chance to clean up dangerous wells, but the act of plugging wells will provide jobs and reduce our climate-changing methane emissions. (It’s interesting that they only call natural gas by its true name — methane — when no one is making money from the gas well anymore.)