energy

Outcry Muted Over New Colorado Oil and Gas Rules

By Richard Martin, 4-04-08

After all the griping and gnashing of teeth over the new rules for oil and gas production in Colorado, it was perhaps inevitable that the actual draft regulations, which were released this week, were less inflammatory than the industry rhetoric would have led you to believe.

Brian Macke, regulatory compliance manager for Denver-based Delta Petroleum, told The Denver Post his company is “encouraged” by certain aspects of the proposed regulations, which call for more scrutiny of the potential environmental aspects of proposed drilling, among other changes. One concern was that stiffer rules would cause undue delays in getting O&G projects approved; but the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission said most permit applications would be decided within 50 days.

The new rules also would bar drilling in critical wildlife areas, primarily in western Colorado, for certain periods of the year.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, the most vociferous opponent of the new regime, was not mollified. “These rules will negatively impact Colorado’s number one economic contributor, said Association president Meg Collins in a prepared statement released just hours after the 160-page report was issued, “at a time when Colorado’s entire economy is being buoyed by these important investments.”

In other energy news:

-- Assuming producers can get the stuff to market, Colorado will take in nearly $1 billion over the next five years from federal mineral revenue on oil and gas production. Saying “this time we’re going to do it different,” state Rep. Bernie Buescher, a Democrat from Grand Junction, wants to put the bulk of that away in a fund to help the state’s public colleges and universities through financial crunches like the one they’ve gone through the last five years. Buescher introduced a bill this week to establish “ the largest savings account in Colorado’s history,” reports the Grand Junction Sentinel.

-- NASA scientist James Hansen has become the leading Jeremiah on climate change, and this week he wrote an open letter to James Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, who himself has become a leader among conventional power-utility executives in moving away from fossil fuels. That’s not enough, said Hansen: building new coals plants in the 21st century is “a terrible, foreseeable waste of money,” wrote Hansen; “Dirty, inefficient coal plants must be replaced to avoid climate disasters.” Rogers agrees but says there must be some kind of bridge between the dirty power of today and tomorrow’s clean energy generation.

-- The U.S. financial industry has some fairly pressing matters on its hands right now, like avoiding insolvency from the subprime mortgage disaster, but Bank of America became the latest large institution to adopt the Carbon Principles drafted early this year by a group of leading investment houses including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley. Saying he wants to help utilities cross the bridge that Duke’s Rogers is describing, B. of A. chairman and chief executive Ken Lewis announced his bank will follow the Principles, which use financial leverage to urge utilities to adopt renewable energy sources and build coal plants equipped with technology to capture and store CO2. 

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.