DENVER – Another gas and oil task force meeting, another day without consensus.
The 21 members of a task force appointed by Gov. John Hickenlooper to make recommendations for legislation, acknowledged Thursday that they were far from agreement on most issues, including local control over rules and regulations.
In fact, the task force – with La Plata County Commissioner Gwen Lachelt serving as co-chairwoman – had a bit of a breakdown at the end of its two-day meeting in Rifle, failing to agree on an agenda for its next meeting scheduled for Jan. 15 in Greeley.
Some members wanted to limit the upcoming hearing to two panels, focused on health impacts and input from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. But others on the panel pointed out that since the meeting will be in energy-heavy Weld County, there should be local points of view, as well.
With a two-thirds majority needed to advance any legislative recommendations, failing to agree on even an agenda item offers an ominous outlook.
“I don’t think we’ve agreed on anything,” said task force member Russ George, a former House speaker and former executive director of the Department of Natural Resources.
Lachelt attempted to encourage task force members to begin to submit concrete legislative proposals.
“Let’s come up with a process that is forward-looking, that is proactive, that is robust, that allows for communities to be involved, that hopefully will help us to avoid those conflicts,” said Lachelt, a Durango resident and former director of Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project.
Hickenlooper, a Democrat, convened the task force as part of a compromise to avoid ballot initiatives that aimed to increase setbacks of wells and offer greater local control.
Many hope that the task force will be able to offer clarity and end the chances of those initiatives coming back in 2016.
But after nearly an hour of debate on just the upcoming agenda items, task force co-chairman Randy Cleveland, president of XTO Energy Inc., asked, “What the hell are we doing here?”
In the end, because the task force deadlocked on the agenda vote, the schedule will be left up to task force staff to determine.
In the meantime, despite his frustration, Cleveland said he believes the task force is making some progress.
“I feel better about where we are,” he said. “But we have a few challenges.”
pmarcus@durangoherald.com
