Despite layoffs in Colorado’s oil patch and low prices for oil and natural gas, anti-fracking activists aren’t giving up their fight to ban fracking. And now they have won approval to circulate petitions to put such a ban before Colorado voters.
The Associated Press reports the supporters of the fracking ban have until Aug. 8 to gather more than 98,000 signatures. If they get the numbers, it will go before voters in the general election.
Called Initiative 40, the plan would amend the Colorado constitution to give cities and counties more power in regulating environmental issues including oil and gas development. Such power was removed by the legislature in Oklahoma last year after the city of Denton, Texas passed a fracking ban and sparked similar efforts in Oklahoma. The Denton ban was eventually overturned but not before Oklahoma’s legislature responded by prohibiting municipalities from banning oil and gas drilling and fracking operations.
In Colorado, there are at least three other proposals for petitions by opponents of oil and gas to limit drilling. State election officials are still reviewing them so those petition drives have yet to begin.
Read more about the anti-fracking activists from the pages of the Summit Daily.
Summit Daily
