April 29, 2016 01:48 PM UTC

Senate GOP Kicks Rural Colorado When Its Down

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• by: PKolbenschlag

(Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Its not news that Colorado’s economic recovery has been uneven.  As the Front Range booms much of the Western Slope has been left behind. Consider this article from the Daily Sentinel, today:

Colorado’s population rate ranked as the nation’s second-fastest in growth in 2014 and 2015, with most of the increases on the Front Range. While the state saw an increase of 101,000 people, most of those people located or were born on the Front Range.

The Front Range’s explosive population growth may not be news to some people, but Mesa County also experienced a modest growth rate of 3 percent, or 456 people, during that time.

That’s important to note because some counties in the state, like Delta County, experienced a population loss those years, said Elizabeth Garner, a demographer for the Colorado Department of Local Affairs.

And while the article works to put a good spin on that disparity (500 people!) the conclusion is unavoidable, communities in western Colorado that have long been linked to extractive industries are struggling.

For instance, this happened today.

The silo at Oxbow’s Elk Creek mine, which sat above the former ‘company town’ of Somerset came down.

Although the Oxbow mine was shuttered due to a mine fire (and not due to Democrats as much as some fossil fuel advocates claim otherwise) when it comes to coal the writing is on the wall. And natural gas and oil prices remain depressed. By fits and starts the era of fossil fuels is making way for something different.

This is certainly true in Colorado, where even conservative counties are realizing the key to future economic prosperity is diversifying the economy, not doubling down on the ways of the last century.

So it was rather upsetting, if not altogether surprising, when the Republicans in the Colorado Senate killed, for a second time, a widely supported bill (SB 81) put forward by Sen. Kerry Donovan to aid struggling rural economies with the transition that even they have come to realize is underway.

Why did they kill the bill? According to Sen. Ray Scott because “grants don’t create jobs, people do.”

What, then, is the plan for “economic development” put forward by the Colorado Senate GOP, other than pithy slogans and political barbs?

According to Sean Paige, spokesman for the Colorado Senate GOP, the future for Western Colorado is to double down on the past: “mining, oil and gas, ranching, logging, etc.” he tweeted.

And what would economic development look like otherwise, without putting more eggs into the basket of the dying industries of the past? “Scooping ice cream & pouring lattes 4 eco-elitists”  the well-paid Denverite opined.  Paige also went on to suggest that the Jordan Cove LNG hub, and the Pacific Connector pipeline that would connect the Piceance Basin to it, would be the salvation for all of Western Colorado.

Setting aside the patently offensive notion that folks in western Colorado must either be roughnecks or baristas, let us just consider the proposition that a new gas pipeline from Rifle to Coos Bay would be our economic savior. Or not, since we can just dismiss such a silly notion out-of-hand.

The pipeline itself cannot suspend economic fact, nor remove the glut of natural gas on the market, nor change the fundamental economics that have kept natural gas at record lows for nearly a decade.

It might provide a slight benefit to the counties that are located in the Piceance Basin, but few people — other than oil and gas lobbyists (and their elected officials, apparently) — believe it is any panacea for the overall economy of the Western Slope. Rather economists are clear, communities in western Colorado that have been shackled to boom and bust economies for decades need to diversify away from that past.

Transitioning economies in western Colorado need economic development: broadband, better roads, transportation infrastructure (including public transportation), light manufacturing so we can add value here to what we would otherwise ship away, job training and educational opportunities.

These are all things that could have benefited from Sen. Donavan’s bill–killed by the Colorado Senate GOP. SB 81 had the support of Colorado Counties Incorporated, the Colorado Municipal League, counties and towns up and down the western Slope, local electric coops, and even our large coal utility Tri-State.

So Sean Paige and the Colorado Senate GOP, including Senators Ray Scott and Jerry Sonnenberg, can hide behind rural Colorado as they carry water, and a single tired one-note tune,  for oil, gas and coal–but at this point its about as effective as a two year old playing peekaboo.

Yes, your hands are in front of your face but we can still see you. You would look pretty silly–but for the livelihood of the communities that are under your thumb.