I attended the mineral royalty owners meeting in Parachute on June 6. Several members of the audience turned an interesting question-and-answer session into a verbal political assault against Rep. Kathleen Curry and Garfield County Commissioner and COGCC member, Trési Houpt.

The two women were invited to talk about how state regulations were working to protect mineral owners, who claim industry under-reports gas production and overcharges on production costs. As some attendees turned rude and vicious, I began thinking this group deserved to be out-maneuvered by the oil-and-gas industry.

In particular, one person, Tom Rutledge, riled up the audience claiming his private property rights on his North Park ranch had been taken away. If you Google his name, you’ll discover that Rutledge is a landman for Laramie Energy, “engaged primarily in lease acquisitions and mineral/leasehold title research in developmental areas for exploration companies.”

Rutledge might be an industry “agitator.” I saw him try to hijack another meeting with the same spiel, this time with Sen. Michael Bennet in Grand Junction a month ago.

Visiting Republican politicians, County Commissioners John Martin and Mike Samson, Rep. Steve King and governor candidate Scott McInnis did nothing to restore order at the royalty meeting. In fact, McInnis joked about it to the audience. Gentlemen, indeed.

When will the public and the media get wise to how the oil-and-gas industry continues to speak with two heads? Obviously, one sector of the industry is out to disrupt our political process and public meetings, and to keep the public bamboozled.

LESLIE ROBINSON
Rifle

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 3:36 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.