January 25, 2009 12:18 AM UTC

Dissembling for Drillers?

• 6 Comments
• by: ClubTwitty

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Continuing his assault on truth Colorado’s new drilling rules, Sen. Greg Brophy apparently is not one to let facts get in the way of carrying the water drilling mud for his clients the oil and gas industry.

In his recent opinion piece in the Denver Post, Brophy writes that:

But these new restrictions go too far, imposing wholesale moratoriums on energy development across vast, energy-rich landscapes. In one case, the purpose of the moratorium is to protect black-footed ferrets, which were released here in the first place by the government.

This is, to put it kindly, wrong.

Follow me kind readers as we deconstruct the Senator’s ‘arguments.’

The so-called ‘moritorium’ on development in critical wildlife habitat was removed at the behest of industry last summer.

“There is no timing moratorium, period,” said COGCC member Richard Alward. “That rule was completely modified at the behest of the industry. “There’s a lot of misinformation and fear about what the rules imply in terms of jobs and costs.”

When energy prices were high, Colorado Republicans were up in arms, demanding that the state remove as many impediments to drilling as it could. Now that they are low, Colorado Republicans are demanding that the state remove as many impediments to drilling as it can.  The question then for Sen. Brophy and his ilk is when is it appropriate to protect our state’s wildlife, water and public health?

And impacts are occuring, which is why these regulations are so necessary.

For example to Colorado’s prize-winning wildlife

Now Ellenberger wonders if Colorado can keep those bragging rights. During a recent tour of the basin, 18-wheelers barreled down a county road as companies drill holes and lay pipes for natural gas in what has become one of the nation’s energy hot spots.

“You definitely get this feeling of being in the middle of an industrial zone,” Ellenberger said.

Throughout the Rockies – the Pinedale Anticline of northwestern Wyoming, the Powder River Basin in northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana – the energy boom is changing a once-pristine landscape. It’s generating lawsuits, regulatory fights and heated public relations battles between those championing America’s untapped energy potential and those worried about populations of deer, elk, pronghorns and sage grouse.

“I think we’re watching the end of the West,” said Steve Torbit, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation. “We’ll have post-stamp areas like Rocky Mountain National Park and Yellowstone and Zion National Park. The rest is going to be industrial-scale productions.”

And to Colorado’s life-giving water.  Our creeks have been threatened by numerous spills and sediment dumps, and drinking water wells have been contaminated with fraccing and other fluids from oil and gas operations.

Then there was the incident in Durango, where a nurse treating an oil-field worker was sent to the ICU and the company refused to disclose what chemicals were involved.

The issue flared up last summer when a Durango nurse became sick after treating a gas field worker for chemical exposure. The worker’s company provided a Materials Safety Data Sheet, but it did not provide a full list of what was in the fluid because it is a trade secret.

The new regulations would address each of these issues–requiring consultation between the Colorado Division of Wildlife (but no ‘moratorium’) when drilling in critical habitat; requiring disclosure of potentially toxic chemicals being used in our communities; and requiring set-backs from drinking water sources.

The fact is that production has been ramping up so much in Colorado over the past decade, far quicker than transportation capacity, that when prices for a thousand cubic feet plunged (by 60%) since November, a glut in natural gas on the market caused drillers to scale down their operations.

As one one driller, in its investor reports noted:

Oil and gas production was 11 percent lower compared to third quarter 2007. In response to declining prices in September 2008, the company elected to shut-in two million cubic feet per day of Piceance Basin gas production, which was restored in early October as market conditions improved.

Another, also in an investor report:

Recent Rocky Mountain gas pricing has been challenging, and we expect these conditions to continue at least through the next drilling season. There are a number of new pipelines planned for the Rockies over the next few years, which would allow for greater take away capacity and less pressure on prices.”

And another:

“Our revenues are going to be down 50 percent from what it was in the summertime when both oil and natural gas were at their peaks,” Wurtzbacher said.

Sen. Brophy is wrong. He is wrong about what is causing the current slow-down. He is wrong about what the regulations would require.

He has been corrected on his lie dissembling about the ‘moratorium’ but he keeps repeating it. From my perspective this is shameful politics and yet another reason why the GOP brand is ‘in the trash can.’