Big Oil Wants to Frack Your Backyard.

And take over your city council and change the Colorado Constitution—basically ruin it for everyone.

Fracking has been allowed to spread like wildfire in Colorado:

Yellow = threatened population/active wells.

Red/Pink areas = air toxins (darker = more toxic).

Currently—due to a State Supreme Court ruling—all the voter-supported city bans on fracking are nullified. There are minimal regulations around fracking operation and distance (some are within 150 feet) from homes, schools and water sources.

Folks, it is time to take action.

Even if you don’t live in Colorado, pay attention—fracking is a national environmental issue.

I urge you to read this recent Boulder Weekly article about a recording made during an oil and gas industry meeting in Colorado. Many ugly truths were revealed (new sh*t has come to light) about how business is conducted behind closed doors. It’s somewhat gratifying to see the truth in print and somewhat terrifying to know the details.

Three highlights: In order to further their agenda, oil and gas is:

1) taking over city councils,

2) working to change the Colorado constitution and

3) spending millions to manipulate election outcomes.

If you want the quick and dirty lowdown, here is an excerpt from the article:

“The recording was made during a presentation by consultant Mark Truax of PAC/WEST Communications who is also Director of Operations and Coalitions for CRED, Pac/West’s largest Colorado client…

CRED (Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development) is an oil and gas industry front group created, and primarily funded, by Anadarko Petroleum and Noble Energy Company, two of the largest oil and gas producers in Colorado. CRED claims it is purely an educational organization, but previous Boulder Weekly investigations have found that it has strong ties to other pro-oil groups including Colorado Concern, Vital for Colorado, Protect Colorado, Common Sense Policy Roundtable and EIS solutions…

The entire CRED presentation was recorded and included its candid descriptions of:

1) How it is taking over city councils.

2) How it’s using the Denver Post to push its agenda.

3) How it created and now uses Vital for Colorado to intervene and change the outcomes of local municipal decisions.

4) How it is spending tens of millions of dollars to gather information on Colorado voters so it can manipulate election outcomes and keep setback and community rights initiatives off the ballot.

5) How it is working to change the constitution so citizens will no longer be able to put forward ballot measures in the future.

6) How it has created specific strategies to defeat grassroots environmental groups working to create stricter regulations on the industry in Colorado.

7) How it is even spending money to prop up the flailing image of the state agency charged with regulating it, so people will think that it is doing a good job.

—occurred in the presence of, and with the full support of, Colorado regulators including Matt Lepore, Governor John Hickenlooper’s appointed director of the COGCC. (Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission).

If there was ever any question as to whether the relationship between the COGCC and the oil and gas industry has become so inappropriate as to disqualify the Commission from its charge as industry regulator, this recording answers that question.

Yes, the members of this COGCC and the governor who appointed them, and is responsible for their actions, have lost credibility when it comes to oversight of the oil and gas industry.

State of Colorado oil and gas regulators, like the state’s governor and the corporate media who have been on the receiving end of the largest ad buy in state history for years now, have become no more than arrows in the oil and gas industry quiver aimed at unsuspecting voters.

This recording makes it abundantly clear that all of the persons and entities mentioned above are fully aware of what CRED and Vital for Colorado and Protect Colorado and the Common Sense Policy Roundtable and all the other industry front groups are doing to subvert local governments, manipulate voters and put forward questionable, industry-generated faux research, which is then passed on to voters by a compliant news media.

They know and yet they do nothing to stop it, or at the very least, expose it.

And it gets even uglier than that. These oil and gas industry front groups are supported and run by boards comprised of some of the state’s wealthiest funders, or their surrogates, of both the establishment Democratic and Republican Parties.

As Boulder Weekly investigations have previously confirmed, this is not a blue/red issue. It is a millionaire/billionaire/corporations verses the rest of us issue.”

Here’s how to help:

Sign petitions #75 (local control) and #78 (2500 foot setback). We have only a few days left.

If you can, donate to Yes for Health and Safety so they can succeed at getting these initiatives on the ballot.

Ignore the ads from Protect Colorado and other big oil funded organizations posing as protectors of the land and economy.

Volunteer to gather petition signatures, tell your friends what’s up and make sure to vote.

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Author: Kate Glover

Image: elephant journal, Colorado fracking threat map

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock