Last week, the Governor of Colorado announced he would convene a special task force to work on resolving conflicts between residents and the state’s oil and gas industry.
It’s not plan A to address a feud over fracking. It isn’t plan B. It’s more like plan C for Colorado. And it has made the political establishment here breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Inside Energy's Dan Boyce reports.
Colorado has been the focus of a lot of attention recently because of high-profile disputes resulting from new drilling operations getting closer to homes and communities.
“We’re here to announce our intention to create a task force that is charged…”
And here’s Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper trying to put some of that attention to rest. A task force bringing together industry, environmentalists and the community. And he unveiled it on the very day signatures were due for a handful of competing oil and gas ballot measures.
“This compromise is reached is by pulling back all four of those ballot initiatives.”
Two anti-fracking initiatives which would have significantly restrained where and how oil and gas could be drilled in the state. Competing against two pro-industry ballot measures. These Plan Bs cropped up after Plan A failed - state lawmakers were unable to pass compromise legislation on the topic. Now, the task force will make recommendations to the legislature for 2015.
“I wasn’t a part of the compromise.”
That’s Republican State Senator Jerry Sonnenberg. He was leading the effort for one of the pro-industry ballot measures. The night before the task force was announced, Governor Hickenlooper called him up.
“...And said we have a deal. I says ‘Who’s we?’”
Initially , Sonnenberg had no intention of pulling his initiative. It wasn’t until he received another call, from his oil and gas connections.
“They needed stability for their stockholders so they could continue to do business without a cloud of a ballot initiative.”
See, if these measures would have made it on the ballot, the state was looking at a record-breaking political ad-spending showdown --in the tens of millions of dollars. Independent Pollster and Colorado Political Analyst Floyd Cirulli says industry didn’t want that, Governor Hickenlooper didn’t want that.
“The entire Democratic Establishment came out against it, with the exception of Mr. Polis.”
He’s talking about Colorado Congressman Jared Polis -- a self-made tech millionaire who has been making a name for himself in national politics as well. This year he was putting all his financial and political weight into supporting both of the anti-fracking initiatives making their way to the ballot. Yet, when Governor Hickenlooper announced his task force compromise to stop the ballot measures -- right next to him,
“I’m very glad to stand with the Governor today to present a thoughtful path forward…”
Congressman Polis.
Political Analyst Floyd Cirulli says Polis was under ever-increasing pressure to back down.
“I think the pressure got so large that he began weighing the risks.”
The risks of splitting Democratic voters. See, Both Governor Hickenlooper and Democratic Senator Mark Udall are running for re-election this November, and both came out against the anti-fracking ballot measures that many of their environmental constituents strongly supported. Cirulli says Hickenlooper and Udall’s campaigns would have been drowned out by the political ad war over those initiatives.
“A significant part of which was going to attack them as being on the wrong side of the environment.”
“The truth is there are a number of people within the Republican Party who are not happy with me.”
Again, this is Republican state representative Jerry Sonnenberg, who pulled his pro-industry ballot measure.
“Because they do think that was a political tool that would have hurt Democrats.”
But he says he’s been convinced the oil and gas industry will be better off with this task force compromise. That’s another group that breathed a huge sigh of relief with this plan C.
