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Sunday, 22 January 2012 01:10 |
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Oil and gas activist groups buoyed by Gunnison County District Court ruling
Grassroots citizen-activist groups seeking more local control of oil and gas drilling are touting a Gunnison County District Court decision earlier this month finding “there is no express or implied preemption” of local regulations by the state of Colorado.
This month’s Gunnison County ruling comes as lawmakers consider legislation that would give more authority to cities and counties as oil and gas drilling – and its commonplace hydraulic fracturing of wells – picks up in the Niobrara Shale formation along the state’s populous Front Range.
Read the complete article in The Colorado Independent.
“This is a huge win for the Colorado public and its local governments, acknowledging that preemption is not assumed,” writes Sonia Skakich-Scrima of the activist group What The Frack? Araphoe. “In effect, local governments can proceed to argue that closed-loop systems that capture all gases and emissions, sound barriers, non-toxic frack fluids and other mitigating measures do not present ‘material obstructions’ to the state’s interests, but rather that they ‘materially harmonize’ the local government need to control land use and protect public health and safety with the state’s interest in oil and gas extraction.”
However, Governor John Hickenlooper, in his State of the State address last week, warned against too many local regulations, saying, “… the state can’t have 64 or even more different sets of rules.” Colorado has 64 counties. |
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 05:54 |
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Sunday, 22 January 2012 21:37 |
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"Occupy The Courts" Draws 400 to Denver Rally
 On Friday, January 20th, Occupy The Courts held a rally in Denver to mark the second anniversary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a Supreme Court decision that ruled corporations can spend unlimited sums to influence U.S. elections. About 400 people marched from the Capitol to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to protest unaccountable and secretive Superfund PACs that have flooded television with aggressive attack ads.
The rally was a coordinated action among activists in 130 cities nationwide whose ultimate goal is to pass a Constitutional Amendment ruling that "Corporations are not People," and "Money is Not Speech." |
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Last Updated on Sunday, 22 January 2012 22:00 |
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Sunday, 22 January 2012 16:18 |
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Fracking would emit large quantities of greenhouse gasses
Scientific American article reports "Fugitive methane" released during shale gas drilling could accelerate climate change By Mark Fischetti | Friday, January 20, 2012 | 3
 Opposition to the hydraulic fracturing of deep shales to release natural gas rose sharply last year over worries that the large volumes of chemical-laden water used in the operations could contaminate drinking water. Then, in early January,earthquakes in Ohio were blamed on the disposal of that water in deep underground structures. Yesterday, two Cornell University professors said at a press conference that fracking releases large amounts of natural gas, which consists mostly of methane, directly into the atmosphere—much more than previously thought.
Robert Howarth, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, and Anthony Ingraffea, a civil and environmental engineer, reported that fracked wells leak 40 to 60 percent more methane than conventional natural gas wells. When water with its chemical load is forced down a well to break the shale, it flows back up and is stored in large ponds or tanks. But volumes of methane also flow back up the well at the same time and are released into the atmosphere before they can be captured for use. This giant belch of "fugitive methane" can be seen in infrared videos taken at well sites.
Howarth said he is particularly concerned about fracking emissions because recent data indicates that the planet is entering a period of rapid climate change. He noted that the average global temperature compared with the early 1900s is now expected to increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next 15 to 35 years, which he called "a tipping point" toward aggressive climate change. More and more fracking would speed the world to that transition or undermine efforts to reduce emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The notion, Ingraffea said, that shale gas is a desirable "bridge fuel" from oil to widespread renewable energy supplies several decades from now "makes no sense" in terms of climate change.
Read the complete article here. |
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Last Updated on Monday, 23 January 2012 00:44 |
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Thursday, 19 January 2012 15:53 |
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Gunnison County Wins Right to Exert Local Control over Fracking
In 2006, David Baumgarten, the County Attorney for Gunnison County, won a landmark case for county rights to mitigate harm from oil and gas extraction through local rules. Then, in 2009, he and another county attorney wrote a legal overview paper of Colorado case law regarding oil and gas extraction, "Preemption is Not Assumed", outlining the continuing legal force of case law supporting county rights to mitigate harm. They asserted in this overview that judicial rulings show that Colorado local governments cannot entirely "materially obstruct" the interests of the state regarding oil and gas extraction, but that local governments have the clear right to create rules and ordinances governing how and where such extraction can be done, as long as those ordinances and rules "materially harmonize" with the overall state goal of extraction.
In the meantime, COGCC and industry have been extremely active in our state, continuing to assert "state preemption", i.e., the supposed superior right of the state to promote oil and gas extraction, insisting that this right trumps the rights of local governments to zone and contain harm of industrial oil and gas development, in all but a few minor areas. As oil and gas applications have recently multiplied at a meteoric rate, with the prospect of fracking the Niobrara shale in Colorado for natural gas and for oil, industry is launching a huge wage of applications that move oil and gas extraction operations right into city limits and populated areas. The state oversight agency, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) and the industry association, COGA (Colorado Oil and Gas Association) have launched an aggressive united campaign that supports the removal of any obstacle to to swift and aggressive extraction of oil and gas wherever there might be prospect of it.
Meanwhile, with the game changing intrusion of the relatively new (about 7-10 year old) process of horizontal fracturing ("fracking"), with its immensely higher heavy industrial operations and use of extraordinary quantities of water to extinction, its use of a much higher number and volume of toxic chemicals, and increasing reports of water contamination, serious public health and safety impacts, and significant impacts to quality of life and property values, local governments in Colorado have been scrambling to determine the prospect of harm and their ability to contain it, as this process moves right into towns and cities, within 100- 350 ft of residences and human activities.
As this fact finding and rule making process has been unfolding at breakneck speed for local governments in Colorado, COGCC and COGA have been very busy inserting themselves into those deliberations. To this end, the COGCC and industry have been appearing at every venue where local governments are considering the creation of or the strengthening of their oil and gas rules and ordinances, to protect their populations' health and safety, zoning, and property values. The COGCC and COGA have not only been strongly asserting the "preemption doctrine" at these venues (the supposed superior right of the state to promote oil and gas extraction), they have been issuing threat of litigation if local governments do not abandon efforts to write protective rules and ordinances that go beyond the specific (and inadequately protective) terms of COGCC regulations !
Despite the overt conflict of interest and inappropriateness of a state oversight agency, COGCC, engaging in strong arm lobbying for the private profit interests of industry and against the rightful responsibilities and needs of local governments, this intimidation campaign has had huge impact on Colorado cities and counties. For example, in Arapahoe County, it wholly succeeded in persuading the majority of the County Commissioners to abandon the newly written rules for oil and gas extraction that the county had produced over many months of consideration through the staff of the Planning Department, public input hearings and written submissions, and meetings of the Planning Commission!
Other local governments, more apprised of the stakes and hidden costs to their area and/or more protective of their rights of local government self determination, such as Colorado Springs, Commerce City, Longmont, La Plata county, enacted moratoriums that would allow them more time for reviewing impact facts and legal options for mitigating harm. Those local governments that have attempted to hold on to their rights of self determination were vindicated on January 3, by a court case in Gunnison County.
On January 3, 2012, Gunnison County won litigation in a suit brought by SG Interests (oil and gas company), vindicating the rights of Colorado local governments to assert their responsibilities and rights to mitigate harm from oil and gas extraction !
David Baumgarten, Gunnison County Attorney, was the attorney for the Board of County Commissioners of Gunnison County, in this suit brought by SG Interests, Ltd (oil and gas operator), alleging that the county's oil and gas rules go beyond the preemptive regulations of the state (COGCC's rules) and represent material obstruction of their company's right to extract and the state's interest in the accomplishment of that extraction (i.e., that the county had overstepped their legal rights because state regs preempt the county's ability to right rules in an area where only the state has the right to regulate).
In fact, the judge ruled that "the state's rights interest in oil and gas actions is not so dominant nor do the interests of state and county oil and gas activities conflict as to the impliedly preempt county authority to regulate the development and operation of such activities." The judge further noted that "An operational conflict between county regulations and state law exists when the local regulation materially impedes or destroys the state interest" and that "A county regulation is in operational conflict on its face only when no possible construction of the regulation can be harmonized with the state regulatory scheme..." and that any assertion of operational conflict would need to be determined through evidentiary hearing (not by simple claim of preemptive rights). The ruling also acknowledged county rights to local recovery of technical or (consultant) expert fees for review of technical permit applications.
THIS IS A HUGE WIN FOR THE COLORADO PUBLIC AND ITS LOCAL GOVERNMENTS, ACKNOWLEDGING THAT "PREEMPTION IS NOT ASSUMED". In effect, local governments can proceed to argue that closed loop systems (that capture all gases and emissions), sound barriers, non toxic frack fluids and other mitigating measures do not present "material obstructions" to the state's interests, but rather that they "materially harmonize" the local government need to control land use and protect public health and safety with the state's interest in oil and gas extraction.
Why have you not read about this huge win in the Denver Post? In your local paper? Indeed: find out why and ask for it to be covered!
Is your local government county attorney aware of this ruling? Have they informed your local council members and county commissioners? Have they informed the public about this critical development? Indeed: find out and ensure that your elected officials are fully updated and understand the implications.
Have our our elected officials been apprised of this important development, as they begin to consider bills on fracking and oil and gas related issues? Indeed: find out and ensure that they are fully updated and understand the implications!
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Last Updated on Thursday, 19 January 2012 17:04 |
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On Saturday, January 21th,