FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 21, 2019
Contacts: Anne Lee Foster, Colorado Rising, (757) 870-5102, anneleefoster@gmail.com
Response to COGCC Director’s Statement Regarding Pausing Oil & Gas Permits
DENVER — On Monday, May 21st, the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission held its first public hearing since the new Commissioners were appointed by Governor Jared Polis. COGCC Director, Jeff Robbins, responded to the concerned residents and community group’s call for a pause on permitting until SB-181 was fully promulgated stating he would not pause all permits and he felt he was operating within the bounds of SB-181 by creating the objective criteria to identify permits for further evaluation.
Anne Lee Foster, Communications Director for Colorado Rising, the grassroots citizen group behind Prop 112, said: “SB-181 mandates a cumulative analysis of health impacts for oil and gas development in Colorado. The objective criteria established by the commission do not address this charge at all, and in fact, encourages a piecemeal evaluation process, making the criteria inherently in violation of 181. Furthermore, the objective criteria have no quantitative basis for preventing harm, as far as the public is aware. For all we know, the criteria are completely arbitrary in its establishment. Until the commission can prove that the criteria objectively and quantitatively protects health in safety, the commission is not acting in accordance with the law.”
Read the letters calling for a pause on permitting here and here.
###
Colorado Rising is powering the grassroots movement to protect public health & safety from dangerous oil & gas operations.