Multiple initiatives concerning oil and gas regulations have withdrawn their efforts to make it to the November ballot. This come after Governor Jared Polis announced he would oppose these measures in 2020 and 2022 on Friday, July 24th. Polis would do so to allow Senate Bill 181 of 2019 take full effect. SB 181 was designed to make changes to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and implement new oil and gas regulation rules.
- Initiative #284, which would have prohibited laws limiting the use and installation of natural gag
- Initiative #304, which would have required fiscal impact statements to require fiscal impact statements to appear on the ballot for future initiatives. The group reported having collected around 140,000 on July 15 (124,632 valid signatures are required to qualify)
- Initiative #174, which would have created setbacks for new oil, gas and fracking projects
- Initiative #312, which was designed to Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from amending or repealing certain rules
Polis said, "In recent years, those conflicts [between the oil and gas industry and environmental groups] resulted in expensive, divisive fights at the ballot box and the courtroom, which did not satisfy homeowners, environmentalists, or the oil and gas industry. There are no real winners in these fights, and for most of this election season it looked like we might see another round of the oil and gas ballot wars in 2020. But today, I'm very proud to report that we have a path before us to make those divisive oil and gas ballot fights a thing of the past."
Here is our earlier blog post regarding Colorado battles over oil and gas initiatives amid COVID-19.
However, advocates of the various initiatives have made it clear these withdrawals do not mean a complete halt of their efforts.
Anne Lee Foster, who filed Initiative #174, said, "[Polis] is just speaking completely out of turn. We have absolutely not taken the option of a 2022 ballot initiative off the table."
Joe Salazar, executive director of Colorado Rising, the group that sponsored Proposition 112 of 2018, said, "I don't know what [Polis] means by a truce. We are keeping everything on the table -- we are not saying yes and we are not saying no."
There are still a number of initiatives hoping to qualify for the ballot. Proponents have until August 3rd to submit 124,632 valid signatures.
