The April 28 letter from Charlie Kerr (”Resolution will weaken COGCC rulemaking,”) regarding Senate Joint Resolution 22 (cosponsored by Republican State Sen. Josh Penry), which would require the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to assess “the potential effect of their rules on the future cost of oil and natural gas in Colorado” — states both timely and well-founded objections.

It is disappointing that Josh Penry, after joining with his Democratic colleague in the House, Bernie Buescher, to sponsor needed legislation regulating evaporation pond facilities, would revert to “carrying water” for the energy industry by proposing “economic impact assessments,” again implying that the COGCC’s new rules will “kill the golden goose.”

At the behest of industry lobbyists, Republicans have long used economic considerations to undercut implementation of environmental regulations, particularly the Clean Air Act. Of course, at the margin, such assessments are arguably valid, particularly where a regulation would require the use of expensive “best available technology” when proven and less costly (but also less effective) “best management practices” are available.

The effect of this resolution would be to shift the burden of proving economic impacts from the industry to the COGCC, thereby increasing the public’s cost of protecting both its health and the environment. Given the oil and gas industry’s well-documented history of too often “crying wolf,” that industry — and not the COGCC — should bear this burden.

Thus, at the same time that Reeves Brown, executive director of Club 20, was claiming that the industry was about to abandon Western Colorado, Mesa County Commissioner and Club 20‚s newly-elected secretary Craig Meis’ Cordilleran Compliance Services, Inc., an energy industry consulting company, was advertising for new employees.

The COGCC’s rulemaking process has afforded, and will continue to allow, the energy industry every opportunity to document issues of cost effectiveness, and the new rules will presumably allow the industry to seek specific variances from those rules on such grounds.

However, the fundamental problem of any “economic assessment” is that, while the business costs of energy development can be calculated with reasonable accuracy, the environmental and public health costs of irresponsible development too often cannot.

BILL HUGENBERG
Grand Junction

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 9:00 am 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.