Here’s a Valentine for former Mesa County Commissioner Kathy Hall — now Executive Director, West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association — and a thank you for joining the debate in Mesa County over the proper extent of state (and, presumably, local) regulation of the oil and gas industry (“State gas regulations must avoid redundancies”, Feb. 13).

As Kathy well knows, the reasons that there is so much posturing (“Agency heads fire back at energy industry over proposed oil, gas permitting rules,” Jan. 30) over the rule-making process now underway at the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (“COGCC”) and the Colorado Department of Natural Resources are twofold. First, the newly expanded COGCC is no longer dominated by oil and gas industry interests; and, second, the Democratically-controlled legislature directed both agencies to consider impacts on wildlife and other environmental resources as part of the permitting process.

As Kathy also well knows, the reason for so much consternation in Mesa County is that there have not yet been any public hearings — either before the Mesa County Planning Commission or the County Commissioners themselves — on the “meat” of the proposed Energy Master Plan (now out for bid). Indeed, our Planning Commission has not been involved in energy master planning since the end of the last “boom” cycle in 1982.
Nevertheless, Kathy’s input is indeed timely — because our Planning Commission is now scheduled to hold its first hearings on energy related matters in 25+ years — on March 27, 2008. So, regardless of what is happening at state level, this forum will give the various “stakeholders” a chance to be heard. Both Kathy‚s organization and others (like the Western Colorado Congress) can stake out their positions — and thereby educate the public — on issues like “redundancies”, “budgetary constraints”, and the potential for “confusion”.

I look forward to seeing Kathy and her cohorts there.

Bill Hugenberg

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 2:14 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.