Conventional wisdom puts Democrats as the party that favors regulation and Republicans as the party against regulation.  The facts make a more complicated picture.

Take the arguments on Monday in the House Local Government Committee on fracking rules.  Representative Su Ryden (D), HD-36, put up HB12-1176, a bill to place in statute a regulation to enforce 1000 feet setbacks on oil or gas drilling rigs from residential areas and schools.   

Ryden brought her bill because constituents in Aurora complained that fracking rigs, industrial in strength, may be positioned as close as 350 feet to their houses and education facilities.  These Aurorans worry about health and safety as well as property values.  One proposed rig would drill just blocks away from Aurora's new P-20 education facility. 

Other local governments have raised a howl over drilling as well, including Commerce City, Colorado Springs, Longmont, and Arapahoe County.  They aren't thrilled to have huge trucks lumbering over their roads, pounding compressors drumming the ears of the locals, and open evaporation pits sending pollutants into the air or ground water.

Typically, Republicans support local control.  But in this case, Representative David Balmer (R), HD-39, from Aurora, objected that the 1000 foot setback regulation would ruin Colorado's chances for job growth.  "This bill will send another shock wave across the country that Colorado doesn’t want to do oil and gas development – it will cause us to lose jobs! Why do you want to run a bill that will cause Colorado to lose jobs?"  Balmer prefers to leave the rule at a 350 foot setback allowed by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), the state's regulatory body for oil and gas drilling.

Representative Bob Gardner (R), HD-21, Colorado Springs, responded in an ironic tone to the testimony of the Colorado Petroleum Association and Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry.  He said he would prefer to defer to the regulators, who are going to hold hearings on the issue sometime in March or April.

As Gardner implied, Republican faith in COGCC regulators represents a sharp turnaround from 2008 when they were excoriated for rules too strict for drillers. 

Republicans are also known to place a high value on property rights. Surface rights are inferior to mineral rights in Colorado.  Mineral rights owners can drill under the property of the surface right owner.  In residential areas, the surface right is held by the homeowner, or potentially a developer, and the mineral right is held by the driller.  Home owners can easily see their property values drop when rigs crop up 350 feet away from their properties, with fracking potentially going on directly underneath their homes.

At this point, the lines seem to be drawn this way:  Democrats support the residential property right owner while Republicans support the mineral right owner. And the fight over regulation has moved to which regulator will best protect which interest.

This conflict is likely to grow across the front range as drillers come closer to suburban and urban neighborhoods to capture the oil and gas from the Niobrara Formation, which, at this point, hasn't taken a position one way or the other.  PEN at CCW

 

This post was published on February 7, 2012. Permalink »