On some level Colorado will always be an attractive place to do business. Our intangibles are nearly unbeatable — the weather, the incredible access to an outdoor lifestyle a healthy and thriving populace — but we’re concerned Colorado could lose some of its competitive edge if it’s perceived to be hostile to business. That’s why we hope the legislature rejects SB24-159, which would direct Colorado to stop issuing oil and gas permits by 2030.
Though the supporters claim oil and gas production would continue well after 2030 (which is technically true but misleading considering the bulk of production comes in the first 18 months of a well’s life), the impacts would be devastating for the industry itself and would ripple across every single economic sector with grave consequences. Natural gas accounts for 34% of our electricity generation and approximately seven in 10 Colorado homes use natural gas as their primary heating source. Nor does this bill take into account the economic impact of essentially shutting down a $48 billion industry that supports more than 300,000 jobs, or roughly 11% of the state’s total economy.
The uncomfortable truth is SB24-159’s greatest impact would be raising prices on all Coloradans and demonstrate Colorado is hostile to business. Because without a correlating reduction in demand or new ready-to-deploy sources of energy to replace the energy no longer produced here, that means higher prices for all Coloradans. As much as the bill’s sponsors and supporters would like to think we can simply do away with oil and natural gas, the inconvenient fact remains demand is not diminishing, nor will it. We need more of all forms of energy. The Energy Information Administration, a nonpartisan federal government agency, projects demand for oil and natural gas will continue to grow through 2050.
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Colorado sits in an uncomfortable place economically. Cost of living is the highest it’s been since the 1980s, yet Colorado still enjoys residential electricity prices 29% lower than the national average. Why? We produce much of the energy we need here locally. Buying local is a message that resonates with people of basically every political and ideological stripe yet doesn’t seem to apply to the energy that powers our daily lives in how we live, work and play.
Eliminate this industry and we will be forced to rely on energy imported from Wyoming, Texas and other states (or other countries with poorer environmental and human rights records) to fulfill the demand we can no longer meet ourselves. Why would we seek to burden Colorado families further in a time of economic challenges? As of this very month, Colorado’s very own Low-Income Energy Affordability Program (LEAP) has seen 99,000 applications for assistance funding, up from 96,000 the year prior.
These realities are not addressed in the bill. The real world impacts are ignored. The facts are these:
Demand is not decreasing.
Not producing the energy we consume locally will result in higher prices for all Coloradans because we will have to import it from other places.
The oil and gas industry in Colorado is an economic powerhouse. Telling the industry it is no longer welcome here will have severe impacts on the economy writ large, as well as state and local budgets who will lose a vital source of tax revenue.
The oil and gas industry in Colorado already operates under some of the strictest regulations in the country and still produces the energy we need resulting in our state ranking fourth in oil production and eighth in natural gas production.
And Colorado will lose some of its luster as a desired place to do business because companies will know a small group of elected officials can potentially kill any industry they don’t like on a whim.
SB24-159 is a looming disaster for Colorado. We encourage this legislature to kill it before it cripples Colorado beyond repair.
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