Educational Choice = Opportunity. Speaking of education, learn up on forced pooling. The AQCC is changing its rules, you can speak up in the process.
Let me quote the last couple of sentences from Ms. Benigno's op ed on charter schools linked below:
"Charter school supporters must remain on guard, strengthen the troops and stay alert because this war will never end. Parents must realize the fragility of school options and keep that in mind whenever they sit down to mark their ballots."
Hear hear. As with TABOR, as with your Second Amendment rights, if you're not watchful, if you're not paying attention, if you're not involved, you'll wake up one day to find you no longer have the freedoms and opportunities you once did.
Educational choice is the key to opportunity for many many children that might otherwise not have it. Keep your eyes open, watch your ballot, and speak up for it.
Forced Pooling, a mini-history lesson and a new bill by Fenberg and Amabile for this legislative session.
Colorado has a law, dating to 1951 if memory serves which allows for what is called forced pooling of mineral rights.
I'll illustrate with an example (at least as I understand it, if I get a detail wrong or more context is needed, please add to the comments). Let's say that there was a big oil field lying underneath 10 properties. An operator came in and successfully got mineral rights from 7 of the property owners, but not from the other 3.
According to Colorado law, once 45% of the owners agree to lease their mineral rights, the oil company can now apply for an order to force the other ones in to a pool of mineral rights (and the operator can also put a penalty on the recalcitrant landowners for the risks and penalties of drilling). If successful the application would allow drilling and operations to extract oil and/or gas whether the owner wants it done or not.
Think of it as akin to eminent domain.
The arguments made on behalf of forced pooling is that it prevents one lone holdout from stopping the extraction of oil and gas and also prevents there being more and unnecessary infrastructure in the oil field (with, presumably, less environmental impact due to less human activity on the land). It has also been alleged that forced pooling prevents a small group of advocates against drilling from stopping others who have no issue with it.
The arguments against are pretty evident. Who would want to have oil and gas infrastructure on their property if they don't want it? My land is mine and I ought to be able to do (or not do) what I like.
Frankly, I myself can see both arguments here.
There have been some minor changes to the law around forced pooling, but the first major change (at least that I'm aware of) came in 2019.
SB19-181 (linked first below), the bill that Democrats stuffed down the throats of Colorado voters after they rejected an initiative to put in mandatory setbacks on oil wells, the one that Polis claimed would end the oil and gas wars in Colorado (see the first link below) was a radical change to forced pooling. It brought local governments in on the decision of forced pooling and made it so anyone who didn't want surface activity on their land wouldn't have any.
One criticism leveled at this effort would be that local governments, which were now able to be part of the regulation of oil and gas, would step in and make it so that no oil and gas could be extracted.
You get a big sense of exactly how well-founded some of these fears were by reading the blog post linked second below and the Sun article linked third. Both detail the the long and storied history of how Boulder fought, and fought, and fought efforts to drill on, around, and even under a property that Boulder County had as a conservation easement.
Crestone Peak Resources (later bought out by Civitas) had the rights to drill near that land in 2018. They wanted to extend into the Boulder County land. Boulder didn't like that and, with SB19-181, the now had another way to fight it.
Fight they did. So, Civitas proposed to use horizontal drilling to leave their pads on land OUTSIDE Boulder's land and still get the oil. Boulder fought that. Civitas then threatened to use forced pooling. Boulder fought that.
Eventually, before their hearing on whether they could force pool the Boulder land, Civitas dropped the issue and moved on. This part is speculation on my end, but I can't help but think that perhaps a legally-required change in mission and members for the oil and gas board might have helped Civitas to decide it wasn't worth trying.**
During this fight and even up until now (now that the fight is over that is) you see efforts undertaken to change or put more rules in favor of landowners in the forced pooling process. A lot of this charge has been and continues to be led by Boulder lawmakers.
The fourth and fifth links below give you a sense of that. The fourth being about a bill that failed last legislative session and the fifth being a bill for this legislative session.
What to make of all this?
I'd be interested in your thoughts on the matter; please add them to the comments if you feel inclined to.
I myself, as I said above, can see both sides of forced pooling here. If I didn't want to sell mineral rights or have oil equipment on my property, I don't want to. Plain and simple. And I understand taking issue with being forced. At the same time, there are legitimate reasons to force pool mineral resources and, yes, that includes environmental impact.
I think in the end, the safest course would be to have the process be balanced, with neither side having a legal advantage. I also think that whoever gets to make the decision on forced pooling (on a case by case basis) should be at the state level so there would be a greater chance for consistency.
My usual default is that local is best, but my concern would be that there would be a patchwork of decision-making where some place like Boulder would always be a NO, others a MAYBE, and Weld a YES.
**I would also call your attention to two things here. One, look at the timelines involved. As I have mentioned before, oil and gas drilling is a lengthy and costly process taking years to plan. The drilling operations you see starting now were planned and money was allocated years ago. I would also point you to the fact that having permits doesn't equal having wells. As you see here, permits means in some cases the START of the fight, not the end. Keep that in mind when you hear politicians say they're not hostile oil and gas and that drilling permit numbers are high in this state.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb19-181
https://www.larimerallianceblog.org/the-story-of-how-boulder-county-succeeded-in-defeating-extraction-energys-attempt-at-a-forced-pooling/
https://coloradosun.com/2023/05/08/boulder-county-oil-gas-civitas-blue-paintbrush/
https://www.courthousenews.com/colorado-senate-committee-rejects-changes-to-forced-pooling-of-mineral-rights/
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-185
The Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC), one of many appointed (not elected) boards in this state that run major swaths of our lives and economy is changing its rules.
And you have the chance to speak up about it.
As part of the rule change they will hold a series of public meetings for comment and/or questions. See the attached screenshot which comes from about the halfway mark of the webpage linked below.
Speaking at things like this, even if you know nothing of air quality procedures is important. I would put it on par with speaking to elected officials because it is on par. As I say, these people on this board make BIG decisions that affect a whole lot in this state.
They need to hear from people besides the usual cadre of environmental activists reading their canned remarks.
Speak up and get involved, even if all you do is say at the meeting, "Why is it that an unelected board gets to have so much control in this state? Is this the way our government should function?"
https://cdphe.colorado.gov/public-information/planning-and-outreach/updating-air-quality-control-commission-procedural-rules
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