U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) George Stern
(D) A. Gonzalez
(R) Sheri Davis
40%
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
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2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
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80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
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90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
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80%
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CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
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CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
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CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
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State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
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State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 05, 2012 06:37 PM UTC
43 Comments
Hick is going out of his way to make the oil and gas industry feel loved and welcomed in the state. I believe he is coming at this more from an economic development, “we need the money for the state so I don’t need to take a political stand on raising revenue” point of view. Hick is a good economic developer, and while that is important in this state, appeasing corporations is not the only economic generator in Colorado.
The factual reality is this: the industry monitoring of what happens with fracking fluids underground is negligible at best; inspection and monitoring of what goes into the ground and the resulting impacts is nonexistent; the industry polices itself, which is not a good thing.
The Governor can continue to make the industry feel welcome without drinking the fluid. He needs start talking about the protections afforded to the people of Colorado as much as he speaks about the benefits of this industry.
Chug-a-lug.
Why is he bending over backwards for the one industry that is significantly damaging the state? I don’t see him putting in this effort for any other industry.
fracked . . .
And it’s about . . .
two years too early for this to enter into any consideration . . . until then, get used to the new
governorO&G lobbyist, same as the old Governor (Owens).Wouldn’t it be nice if Hickenlooper put his voice to a public service announcement advocating Coloradans work together to update necessary state infrastructure instead of advocating for the o/g industry? Or a PSA about the importance of education funding? Or one about how we need to all continue to sacrifice (yes, including those state and federal tax benefits for oil gas) since we’re not in a strong economic recovery yet?
I’ll be the first to admit the oil and gas industry pays millions and millions of dollars into the state coffers that allows the state to do things we never would be able to without oil and gas.
But, it would be nice (in happy, happy, fantasy land) if our Gov spoke for the people and not the industry. The industry always cries that they’ll move and go elsewhere, but, ya know what, they don’t and they won’t. I wish Hickenlooper wouldn’t buy into that straw man as easily as he has been.
Crickets were the only thing you heard during the Proposition 103 debate. The Silence of the Manchurian Oilman on issues that are important to Progressives.
Two reasons O&G companies won’t go anywhere else: First, we have the oil and gas. And as long as extracting it is profitable, there will be O&G companies here to extract it. Second, they’re already extracting oil and gas from everywhere else that has it, so they can’t simply shift their business somewhere else.
noticeably absent, any support from elected officials.
The presence of an MSDS listing isn’t, by itself, evidence of toxicity.
For example, here’s the MSDS for sand.
“I’ve got no appetite for any tax increases, but that
mintymoney fresh taste of fracking additives, . . . (only not any of the 99% of that shit that is honestly harmful) . . . it’s like an O&G industry party in my mouth!”My frackin’ fluid tastes better than your frackin’ fluid…mine comes right out of the pipe…
Just a taste. What’s the uproar about?
but does the commercial even reference the compromise that he is talking about? It seems like there is a disconnect between what he purports to celebrate and the central message of the commercial.
I’ve long been a fan of Hickenlooper’s, and for the most part still am. But I guess it’s true what they say, while you can take the geologist out of the petroleum industry, you can’t take the petroleum out of the geologist. He seems to have a massive blind spot on this issue. To his credit, I suppose, I don’t recall him ever really billing himself as an environmentalist. Clearly, he’s not one.
or someone who would find a great judge who is a registered Democrat for the Colorado Supreme Court is he got a chance to nominate one.
Upon closer examination, he appears to have a lot of blind spots. I don’t think I’d want to have him behind the wheel if we needed to go anywhere.
The governor doesn’t get to find a new justice, he has to choose from three nominees. The other two nominees were Frederick Martinez and Patrick O’Rourke. Should he have chosen one of them? I am not asking snarkily; other than having litigated once against O’Rourke a long time ago, I don’t know any of the three.
But overall, yes, Hickenlooper is relatively centrist/pragmatic/call it what you will. His candidacy was met with great excitement among Dems, at a time that it was assumed it would be a difficult election. Enter Maes, etc., and we could have gotten Barney Frank elected. Regardless, intractable budget issues would have largely tied most anyone’s hands on, say, education.
Picking from 3 would mean that you picked the best person which is a defensible argument.
The odd thing for me is that Ritter was never embraced by the Democratic elite but he seemed to be willing to take unpopular stances like the property tax for schools because he believed in progressive positions. Ritter walked the talk but nobody warmed up to him.
The way things are structured now any criticism of Hickenlooper can be met with a dismissal as partisan and unhealthy. It is hard to deny being partisan when it is so obvious that Republicans have done nothing that could even remotely be considered conciliatory. If anything they appear to be even more extreme and unapproachable. The bi in bi-partisan is supposed to stand for two so how can you be bi-partisan if there aren’t two parties who are willing to work with each other.
How were the three selected for final nomination? If it was a panel then how were they appointed to the panel and how big was the pool they chose from? I’m curious about the process.
on their website http://www.courts.state.co.us/…
Anyone can apply, so the size of the pool depends on the # of applicants. The appellate courts nominating commission has 15 members with staggered terms, and there are limits on how many can come from one party, must be non-attorneys, etc. IMHO it is a system that has worked very well, especially by comparison to electing judges (the way it has historically been done in most states).
A popular governor Hick
Tried to impress with a devious trick
“Drink frack fluid, it’s food –
It will make you feel good!”
But now all he makes us is sick.
And I wrote it. Wish I had not been forced to. I like Hick personally, but this is just obscene. If we wanted an anti-environmental crusader, we could have gotten one for free.
As I alluded in one of my other ditties, I think he has mistaken his “landslide” over the weakest opposition in living memory for a mandate.
Personally, I’m hoping for a primary. Just to hold his feet to the fire and get him to move back to the progressive side. Not seeing much of his progressive side these days…
why not a short story, a reverse Robert Louis Stevenson . . .
Mr. Frackyl and Governor Hide.?
No? How about “Frankenlooper” . . . the story of a mad geology professor, and the monster he creates?
for all I care. The fluid is only part of the problem and doesn’t make fracking safe. It breaks up seams and lets flow all of the lovely heavy metals and other benefits in the ground. Those can migrate to your local drinking water as easily as any fracking fluid
That’s new to me and not what I’d expect to come out of sedimentary rocks. If it were near a uranium deposit, that might be different, but the environments that result in deposits of oil/gas and uranium are very different (oxidizing vs reducing) and unlikely to occur in the same area.
Some other geologist may know more about it…
And what percent of U.S. uranium is mined from other than sedimentary rocks?
This is a test.
Silver, cobalt, nickel, arsenic, etc.!
And, not much more than 0% from other than sedimentary rocks.
What do I win?
You get close, G.
But I’m holding the rest for the guy who just pulled the comment out of his ass.
I’m too lazy to go look up the details 🙂 but I’m pretty sure chemical compounds of U and its sister metals are generally very water soluble, both at negative and positive Ph, so you would expect deposits in sedimentary rock (probably typically dissolved from basalts / granites from igneous rock somewhere upstream – from where they started somewhere in geological time).
Why do you enjoy being such an asshole? Seriously.
But you’re probably alluding to Mississippi Valley type PB-ZN deposits. But I don’t recall those occurring in proximity to oil and gas. It’s been 30 years since I took a class in that stuff, though, so I just might be wrong. Unlike you. You’re never wrong. That way you can make yourself feel better by treating other people like shit.
that asking people to substantiate their unsubstantiated claims is “being an asshole.”
But that’s not what you did, is it?
So does fracking lead to heavy metals in groundwater? Do you even know?
As to the composition of fracking chemicals, note that almost a year ago a report of the U.S. House Energy and Commerce committee compiled MSDSs from various companies and found that many chemicals actually in use are known or suspected carcinogens, are regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and/or are hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
For example:
From 2005-2009 fracking companies in CO used 1,147,614 gallons of compounds containing 2-Butoxyethanol. 2-BE is the chemical the EPA found in water wells in Pavillion, WY.
From 2005-2009 fracking companies in CO used 1,544,388 gallons of compounds containing at least one carcinogen.
From 2005-2009 fracking companies in CO used 375,817 gallons of compounds containing at least one chemical regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.*
* the Safe Drinking Water Act does not apply to fracking due to the (Cheney) Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Full report:
http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?q=news/committee-democrats-release-new-report-detailing-hydraulic-fracturing-products
Note also that the Shale Gas Subcommittee of the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board in a November, 2011 report “reiterates its recommendation that diesel fuel should be eliminated in hydraulic fracturing fluids.”
Full report:
http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/
There is an increasing amount of evidence as to A) what is being used in fracking and B) why it should not be used in fracking.
That this is how bipartisan cooperation is rewarded.
If Hick were a Republican senator with the occasional bout of bipartisan cooperation, he would have been driven from office. Why are Democrats such wimps?
pisses me off about the Democrats in this state . . . where in the hell are the rest of those cozy, comfortable Democratic “leaders”? Why aren’t any of them publicly speaking out? I’ve got to think that it’s much easier for Hickenfracker, er, Frackenlooper to play the Republican since there’s nothing but silence to his left.
More “deliberate backstabbing.”
Oops, did I say that out loud?
Or that he’s a Dem and Hick is the real GOP? Or maybe a GOPer handed the frack juice to Hick?
We are talking about drinking frack juice and a radio interview, right? So, what parties are involved here?
A couple more questions…
Are you just on auto pilot, or do you actually produce that dribble after doing something that feels to you like ‘thought’?
Do you get paid by the word?
When I first met the Governor, it was in the hallway by the escalators just after the 2011 JJ Dinner in Denver. I had just been elected co-chair of the Progressive Democrats of Colorado and took the opportunity to introduce myself and it was before I knew anything about any “position” he had on fracking, although I had written about it in Park County over the prior year. So I asked.
Twenty minutes later, people were looking at their watches wondering when the Governor would bring an end to the conversation. He seemed to hope that the more he talked, the more support he’d receive.
“What’s not Progressive,” he spun, and while I wasn’t prepared to stage a debate with the Governor at the end of a very long day, I did. His focus was on giving larger fines when there are problems, but very supporting of the process, ignoring the idea that once a problem happens, it’s too late.
And damn. Nothing has sunk in since, it seems. I guess it takes a long time to change the mental geology and appreciate that there are those of us Colorado natives who have no interest in bending over to the oil and gas industry.
Progressive? Let’s start with oil and gas speculators on Wall Street rather than use the high price of gas as a shield which is unfounded and supposed to be regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
Governor Hickenlooper, Sir. Might I humbly suggest that it isn’t even KoolAid you’re being served.
But the last thing we want to have to say is “don’t drink the water.”
. . . that’s why god created a superfund.
Hick needs lot’s of public outcry in the media from his left, his tendency is always to drift right.
Thanks DKO.