Over 100 Colorado elected officials send letter supporting BLM Oil and Gas Rule, opposing H.R. 6009
An oil well sits on Colorado grasslands
Mason Cummings
Leaders across the state urge House to reject “harmful legislation” by Rep. Boebert that would halt federal oil and gas reforms that will benefit Coloradans
Today, more than 100 elected officials from across Colorado sent a letter to all leadership and members of the U.S. House of Representatives in support of the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed Oil and Gas Rule, and urging them to vote against H.R. 6009, the Restoring American Energy Dominance Act, introduced by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). The bill, which the Colorado leaders ranging from mayors to county commissioners to state senators call “harmful,” would withdraw the BLM Oil and Gas Rule and prevent agency efforts to try for a similar rule again. The House is expected to hold a floor vote on H.R. 6009 this week.
“The Bureau of Land Management is modernizing their rules as part of their agency responsibility to guide uses on public lands,” said Gunnison Mayor Diego Plata, who signed the letter. “Representative Boebert’s bill would not only halt a public process that has elicited thousands of supportive comments from Coloradans, but it would prohibit BLM from issuing a substantially similar rule in the future, in effect gutting part of BLM’s core mission that’s been in place for nearly 50 years.”
The letter extols the benefits of the BLM’s proposed reforms to the federal oil and gas leasing program, which include putting guardrails on what lands are offered for oil and gas leasing, limiting participation of bad actors, and increasing the woefully outdated rates that fossil fuel companies pay to extract public resources and cover the cost of clean-up and restoration after drilling is finished.
“Instead of building on the progress to make oil and gas companies pay a fairer share and clean up their messes on public lands, H.R. 6009 would wreck these critical efforts and hamstring the federal government’s ability to manage Colorado’s public lands for anything other than oil and gas extraction,” said Allie Lowy, Climate Solutions Specialist at The Wilderness Society, which helped organize the letter along with The Mountain Pact.
In Colorado, where 3.7 million acres of public lands are tied up for oil and gas drilling – effectively precluding the BLM from managing them for other, more valuable uses, like recreation, renewable energy or cultural connection – supporters argue that the Oil and Gas Rule will better align oil and gas decisions on public lands with Colorado’s public interest.
In addition to opposing H.R. 6009 because it would halt long-overdue reforms to the outdated federal oil and gas program, the elected officials who signed the letter say that Representative Boebert’s bill undermines the voices of Coloradans.
“Most importantly, however, it disregards the views of tens of thousands of Coloradans – our constituents,” the letter said. “During the rule’s comment period, the agency received over 260,000 comments. According to one analysis, over 99% of these comments were supportive and only roughly 0.1% asked the agency to weaken or withdraw the rule. Tens of thousands of these comments came from Colorado voters. This bill completely disregards those voices – our voices.”
For more information, or to connect with energy policy experts or community advocates in Colorado, contact Emily Denny of The Wilderness Society or Anna Peterson of The Mountain Pact.
CONTACT:
Emily Denny, The Wilderness Society, edenny@tws.org
Anna Peterson, The Mountain Pact, anna@themountainpact.org
