Newsweek
By David Sirota
2/19/17
Colorado's attorney general—who has
received fossil fuel industry donations—is suing to block local restrictions on
fracking.
This article originally appeared on the International
Business Times.
In the latest salvo in an intensifying national battle
over climate change policy and fossil fuel extraction, Colorado Attorney
General Cynthia Coffman filed a lawsuit aimed at preventing local communities
from restricting hydraulic fracturing. The Republican’s lawsuit on behalf of
the powerful oil and gas industry comes only a few years after fossil fuel
industry campaign cash boosted her campaign for public office.
Republicans have traditionally portrayed themselves as
supporters of local control; during a presidential campaign visit to Colorado,
Donald Trump said he supported local officials’ right to restrict fracking. But
Coffman’s lawsuit aims to overturn moratoriums on fracking passed by Boulder
County officials who said they wanted to develop detailed plans for orderly
fossil fuel development.
“It is not the job of industry to enforce Colorado
law; that is the role of the Attorney General on behalf of the People of
Colorado,” Coffman said in a statement that asserted the lawsuit was designed
to uphold state law. “Boulder County’s open defiance of state law has made
legal action the final recourse available to the state.”
Coffman's lawsuit to block local fracking regulations
was filed just as a new Colorado School of Public Health study found that
children in the state with "leukemia were 4.3 times more likely to live in
the densest area of active oil and gas wells than those with other
cancers."
The legal fights over fossil fuel development in
Colorado carry national significance, because the political swing state has one
of the country’s largest reserves of natural gas.
As environmental and public health concerns about
fracking have mounted in recent years, a number of states are grappling with
conflicts between state and local officials over who gets to oversee fossil
fuel regulation. State lawmakers and courts in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio,
North Carolina and West Virginia have tried to curtail local government's
ability to regulate natural gas extraction—and national conservative groups and
legislators have pushed initiatives to preempt local fracking regulations.
The preemption initiatives and rulings have come amid
a flood of campaign cash from fossil fuel interests. Since 2010 election cycle,
the industry has poured nearly a quarter-billion dollars into state elections.
A recent report by the left-leaning Center for American Progress found that “in
a growing number of states, the courts settling these state-local disputes are
seeing more campaign cash from oil and gas companies, lawyers, or other special
interests.”
Colorado Cash
In Colorado, Coffman’s move to overturn the
moratoriums follows a successful 2016 lawsuit by the oil and gas industry that
supported Colorado state regulators’ right to prevent local communities from
heavily regulating fracking.
Environmentalists say scientific studies of Colorado
show fracking poses a threat to drinking water, public health and clean air. In
recent years, voters in cities along the Rocky Mountains’ gas-rich Front Range
(such as Longmont and Ft. Collins ) have passed ordinances designed to restrict
fracking over the opposition—and political spending—of the powerful oil and gas
industry.
Facing the prospect of more such moratoriums, the
industry has pressed state officials to assert preemption power to crush the
local regulations—and it has stepped up its political spending in Colorado,
according to data compiled by the National Institute on Money In State
Politics. The oil and gas donors spent $1.2 million in the state’s 2010 and
2012 election cycles, and $22 million in the state’s 2014 and 2016 cycles.
Much of that increase in campaign cash flooded into
Colorado’s election in 2014—the year Coffman was running for attorney general.
A report from the watchdog group Colorado Ethics Watch found that 28 fossil
fuel corporations and trade associations pumped nearly $12 million into groups
that were active in that election. Much of that money flowed into a group
working to stop a ballot measure proposing to restrict fracking; Ethics Watch
noted that the group “spent millions on canvassing and get-out-the-vote
efforts” while Coffman was running.
Coffman’s campaign directly received nearly $20,000
from oil and gas interests—including maximum donations from fossil fuel
companies’ political action committees. She also was boosted in the 2014
election by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA), which launched
a $1.4 million political action committee that supported her candidacy. RAGA
that year listed fossil fuel corporations and trade associations among its
largest donors.
An International Business Times review of federal
campaign finance data found that while RAGA was bankrolling an ad campaign to
promote Coffman’s candidacy, the group received big cash infusions from Koch
Industries ($130,315), Devon Energy ($125,000), American Natural Gas Alliance
($103,395), the American Petroleum Institute ($50,000), the American Fuel &
Petrochemical Manufacturers ($60,000), NextEra Energy ($50,000) the American
Gas Association ($15,000), Centerpoint Energy ($25,000) and DTE Energy
($25,000). The group also received:
A combined $300,000 from donors at Ariel Corporation,
which makes components for natural gas extraction equipment.
$185,000 from the Republican State Leadership
Committee, which that year was funded by Koch Industries, Encana, ExxonMobil, and
the America’s Natural Gas Alliance. RAGA and the RSLC also that year raked in a
combined $5.8 million.
$2.7 million from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which
has received financial support from fossil fuel corporations.
The cash came into RAGA—and then to support Coffman’s
campaign—as government documents surfaced showing how GOP attorneys general
were banding together to help the fossil fuel industry push back against proposed
environmental regulations.
Coffman is now reportedly considering a run for governor
in 2018. If she becomes the GOP nominee, she would presumably rely on financial
support from the Republican Governors Association, which in the last election
cycle listed donors from fossil fuel industry players Koch Industries, Ariel
Corporation and NextEra Energy among its top contributors.
'Unheard of' to sue on behalf of
industry
Coffman originally threatened to sue Boulder County in
late January, after local officials declined to end their fracking moratorium.
The trade industry representing Colorado’s oil and gas industry issued a
statement hailing her lawsuit this week….
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