DENVER — Colorado legislators are planning a bill to stop oil and gas drilling in the state by 2030, revoking the ability to permit new wells this decade and creating panic in the industry about its future.
Draft language has been discussed with industry leaders and environmentalists and a version of the bill is expected to be submitted to the state legislature within days.
Oil and gas industry members see the measure, which comes after years of tightening regulation on oil and gas, as an effort to kill a multibillion-dollar Colorado industry outright.
That’s prompted the oil and gas industry to start preparing to push back on a scale politically that it hasn’t done before, putting public pressure personally on moderate majority Democrats in an effort to defeat the bill, said Kait Schwartz, director of API Colorado, the local chapter of the American Petroleum Institute. She used the term “extreme force” to describe the intensity of the industry's effort to stop the legislation.
“When you hear the words ‘phase out’ and ‘ban,’ it doesn't leave much room for a compromise,” she said.
> Read the full story at the Denver Business Journal.
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