Fracking bans deserve defeat
Broomfield spent a great deal of time this year updating its oil and gas regulations in light of controversy over energy extraction on the Front Range. Ultimately, the Broomfield City Council approved rules that require companies seeking timely approvals to adopt a host of “best practices” that go well beyond state or federal law.
The ordinance is amodel of how communities can control their own destinywithout simply trying to ban drilling. And yet Broomfield voters also face a ballot question this fall thatwould impose a fiveyear ban on hydraulic fracturing.
We hope they reject this ban and let the new regulations work as intended. Not only is the measure not needed, it’s very likely illegal.
In a detailed analysis, the Broomfield city attorney spelled out “what is clearly permitted and what is clearly prohibited” by Colorado courts. Among the latter: “Local governments cannot ban oil and gas operations.”
Would the courts look more sympathetically on the ban because it’s temporary? Maybe, if the purpose were to give the city a chance to revise its rules. But Broomfield just completed that exercise. The purpose of this mor- atorium is to stop new drilling— which courts have not allowed.
Three other communities— Fort Collins, Boulder and Lafayette— also have moratoriums or bans on their ballots that face the likelihood of being overturned on legal challenge. The one in Lafayette, where the council already approved a three-year moratorium this summer, is so radical and confusing that even council members who oppose hydraulic fracking say it goes too far.
“What this charter amendment does is takes fracking and writes a document around it that attempts to separate Lafayette from the United States Constitution and the Colorado Constitution ... ,” Councilman Pete d’Oronzio said.
A council resolution against the measure also points out that a “significant local Boulder County business thatmanufactures communications equipment used in oil and gas infrastructure, and that employs Lafayette citizens, decided not to relocate its business to Lafayette because of the uncertainty that surrounded Ballot Question 300.”
Indeed, to the extent the proposal is intelligible, it appears to be unconstitutional on several levels. Voters should kill it so a judge doesn’t have to.