President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%↑
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd
(D) Adam Frisch
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
52%↑
48%↓
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
February 20, 2015 01:30 PM UTC
22 Comments
Well, you can't blame Jared for trying. Let's go to the voters.
Did anyone honestly expect a different kind of outcome . . . ????
No, but since we have Democrats who are on the wrong side of the issue, we have to jump through all the hoops.
No, Dio…I certainly didn't….
I pushed for a 2,000 ft. setback….I don't think that will happen.
It is going to the ballot, or somethiing is is my guess. Here's hoping the fracktivists get hit with a big bolt of strategery.
I spoke with some of the panel members, including the chair, Gwen. They are well aware of the mechanism by which they can easily balance the power between the O&G industry and regular folks…they are just unwilling to recommend it.
I look forward to a version of SB93 possibly being on the ballot as well if the fracktavists continue to insist that mineral property rights holders need to be the only ones to sacrifice to meet the fracktavists' ideology.
Local control must be balanced against property rights
BREAKING: Attorney-at-Law supports the Rampent Speculatin' and Schyster Taxfunded Employment Act.
That you demean such a basic principle as property rights is an indication that your views are extremist. If the government takes your property they need to pay you just compensation. Paying the costs of the eminent domain process should not be on the backs of the property holder but instead on the governmental entity that seems to force the property holder to "sacrifice" for the "greater good".
When the 'greater good' involves not getting cancer or having my own property values destroyed I say you are on weak ground, counselor, even by some bizarre Randian notion of 'basic principle' that over-rides all social obligation.
Or Rawls, swinging his arm, take your pick: your argument is faulty. The facts are weak too. Show me where a decades old 'mineral right' guarantees the particular use of a specific 21st century technology?
Tater,
The law has been clear that if you destroy the value of a property right for the greater good you need to pay just compensation. The issue has been how much value needs to be destroyed. If the fracktavists insist on bringing their extremist ideology to the ballot box, don't be surprised if mineral interest holders similarly bring the question to the ballot box on whether they should be compensated if 60% of the value of their property is taken from them due to such ideology.
The law is not that clear and do not misrepresent it, on so-called 'regulatory takings' or on regulations geared toward specific technologies. Show me where fracking itself is a use by right in what your claim is a clear canon of laws and rulings.
Furthermore Sonnenberg's formulation is a vindicative, unworkable pile of feces. Have you read it? Of course shysters and speculators love it, its a funnel for public cash to end up in private pockets. What can be more 'real world' CON-servative than that, huh?
Of course I have read it. I wouldn't be commenting here if I hadn't. The valuation procedure is hardly a "vindictive, unworkable pile of feces". It is a straightforward process: if you wish to enforce a local control ordinance against a mineral rights holder you have three options: (a) go to the state and get authorization to approve it; (b) handle it locally and ensure it doesn't deprive a mineral interest holder 60% of the value of his interest; or (c) pay the mineral interest holder the value of his interest that you are depriving in the event such deprivation exceeds 60% of the interest.
As for the "speculative" element, it is quite revealing that you regard protection of ACTUAL property rights to be speculative. Perhaps this is simply a difference of ideology. If so, a ballot initiative may clarify how Coloradans feel about such things.
How much is a cubic foot of undevelope gas resource locked in shale worth? Today? Tomorrow? A year from now? When denied drilling commences? When it ends? When the right was purchased? When some mineral holder believes it may be devloped in the future? What date again? Oil or gas? Dry or wet? With or without a pipeline nearby? Or a future pipeline? How about if LNG exports start?? Big. Steaming. Pile.
Good points, tater. Back in the early 80's during the ag crisis, Farm Credit Servies routinely resold agricultural properties that were acquired through foreclosure with 100% of the mineral rights attached. In those transactions the mineral rights, for all practical purposes, were assigned a zero value (the land brought the same price whether the minerals were attached or not).
It should be measured based on a rolling average of the last five years of value from the date the preliminary determination process commences.
Not a big fix or a large change.
-anyway I have paid work to do (two trials in next two months)…so I gotta jet. you should see the point though: the petition process can do more than just screw over mineral rights holders: it can protect them as well.
Elliot,
Your calculation…
a rolling average of the last five years of value from the date the preliminary determination process commences.
Seems like something you pulled out of your hat. I can't see how that in any way passes the rational nexus test…
Ken Wonstolen (former lead counsel for COGA) once said, in response to an effort by Garfield county to institute some oversight action (can't recall the particulars just now), said,
"The state of Colorado has no business transferring value from the mineral estate to the surface estate." If that is true, counselor, what business does the state have in transferring it the other way? Am I to understand you think mineral rights really ARE superior to surface rights? Knowing what I am sure you must know about why it was ever considered that way to begin with, how can you justify the inequity inherent in trashing surface rights for the benefit of the mineral estate? As THT and MB have pointed out, mineral development is highly speculative…much more so than Real Estate.
Mineral developers have had a right to steal from surface owners for far too long. If "taking" is the issue, it needs to be straight up… 50/50…completely equal.
2,000 ft….nothing less.
I'll anxisouly await a late bill by my Senator, the Chair of the Senate Ag Committee, Sonnenberg, to compensate Colorado agriculture for its damages from increased levels of ozone in the state. Jerry can't even do the simple arithmetic on how the RPS substantially benefitted the economy of his home county, Logan County – to perform this statewide calculation he's going to have to throw his Dumphuckistan economists overboard and start with a new team.
This is great! Thanks for reposting the link….
I'm late to this party, but perhaps someone can still fill in a gap in the discussion for me. Lots and lots of discussions about setbacks of various distances as well as the fluff up over compensating landowners if they can't have their own drill rig. But nowhere have I see the topic of horizontal drilling brought into the equation. My understanding is that moving a drill rig back another 500 or 1,000 feet would still leave the gas resource within easy reach via horizontal drilling. I'm fairly certain that some federal lands are available for leasing, but disallow any surface occupancy. So again, I'm just trying to figure out how horizontal drilling figures into this and other discussions about setbacks and royalty compensation.
Yes, there are federal lands that have No Surface Occupancy leases, and yes they can extend the bore more than 2000 feet. And Sonnenberg's bill is garbage designed to be vindictive and a boon to shysters and speculators. Here's a question for our resident gas counselor, how much tight shale gas exists uner an undrilled parcel?? How do you value 'I don't have a fucking clue?' Yep, speculate, and hire a lawyer.