A Democratic lawmaker in Colorado compared fracking to manufacturing rat poison Monday after chastising Republican counterparts for not acting rationally on oil and gas development in the state.
Colorado citizens have a right to be terrified at the possibility that energy producers might put a natural gas well near their homes, Rep. Matt Gray of Broomfield, Colo., said on the floor of the Colorado House. He then suggested enacting more natural gas wells might be too risky for the public.
“They would be incredibly upset about that. If they were going to put a rat poison manufacturing facility in your district, you’d be incredibly alarmed about that,” said Gray, who was commenting on a bill that would force existing wells to be moved further away from schools and other buildings.
“If all you hear about what’s going on is what happens at this well, what you see in the newspaper, you don’t understand what that means to the residents who are affected by that,” he said. “You would understand it if somebody said, ‘I want to put a fireworks factory in your district.’ People would be like, ‘What is going on, you’re going to put that next to a neighborhood?’”
Broomfield passed a measure in 2017 to enable the city require additional protections before permitting drilling. Weld County is the state’s largest oil and gas producer, with 91 percent of Colorado’s oil production.
Much of the animus against hydraulic fracturing has emanated from Colorado, despite the state’s reliance on the oil and gas industry. Colorado officials have nevertheless taken a hard tact against the state’s anti-frackers.
Lafayette City Mayor Christine Berg dinged a proposal at a city council meeting that would have granted activists who carry out “direct action” against oil projects almost complete immunity from arrest. Members of the city council blasted the measure as well.
“The language … I don’t think it’s enforceable, the language is loose, it’s hard to interpret, I don’t think it needs to be in our code,” Berg, a Democrat, said, referring to the language activist and city council member Merrily Mazza used to promote the proposal.
The council voted in May 2017 to strip similar language from the “Climate Bill of Rights” (BOR), which codifies residents’ right to a healthy climate. Mazza, an activist with East Boulder County United (EBCU), suggested at the meeting that adding “direct action” to the BOR would mark “a very powerful political statement for our community.”
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