LAFAYETTE APPROVES YEAR-LONG STAY ON NEW DRILLING

The Lafayette City Council on Tuesday approved a year-long stay on new drilling applications within city limits.

If the moratorium passes on second reading next month, it would stop new oil and gas development until late 2018, unless officials iron out new regulations before then. A vote on the issue was tabled earlier this month on the heels of newly announced drilling plans for the region.

Colorado Oil and Gas Association president Dan Haley urged Lafayette to abandon the moratorium, warning against legislation that could lead to “contentious and expensive litigation funded on the backs of taxpayers.”

The proposal also sparked backlash among fractivist groups.

They say the stay would fly in the face of the city’s Climate Bill of Rights and Protections, a measure passed earlier this year that effectively bans drilling in name of residents’ health.

Whether or not the two measures would contradict each other, moratoriums in the past have proved to be provisional: Longmont voted for a ban on fracking within city limits in 2012, drawing a lawsuit from the industry.

The city took the lawsuit to the Colorado Supreme Court, where the judges ruled that Longmont had no right to ban the practice within city limits.

In 2014, Lafayette saw its own voter-approved ban tossed out by a Boulder District Court judge.