New Polis Administration Rules Fail to Protect the Public from Fracking Impacts

ECMC enacts rules that will allow continued drilling regardless of climate and health impacts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 15, 2024

ECMC enacts rules that will allow continued drilling regardless of climate and health impacts
Oct 16
Written By Lauren Swain
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 15, 2024

CONTACTS:

Heidi Leathwood, 350 Colorado, 720-839-2549, [email protected]

Lauren Swain, Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado, 303-887-5951, [email protected]

Rachael Lehman, Black and Brown Parents United, 720-485-1310, [email protected]

New Polis Administration Rules Fail to Protect the Public from Fracking Impacts

Energy and Carbon Management Commission enacts rules that will allow continued drilling regardless of climate and health impacts

The Energy and Carbon Management Commission, an agency under the direction of Colorado Governor Polis, today passed cumulative impact rules that will continue the status quo of streamlining approval for drilling permit applications. The rules give Operators the responsibility for analyzing cumulative impacts while establishing no conditions under which the Commission must deny permits — even in the disproportionately impacted communities the Commission is required by law to protect.

The adopted rules require oil and gas operators, who have an intrinsic bias and no expertise in cumulative impact assessment, to conduct a cumulative impact analysis. Commissioners rejected stakeholder demands to shift the responsibility for cumulative impacts analysis from the oil and gas operators back to the Commission and to adopt strong denial criteria to ensure permits are not approved if the analysis shows adverse cumulative impacts will be too great. Despite receiving evidence that fracking emissions are linked to health impacts well over 1 mile away from oil and gas facilities, the Commission refused to require baseline data to understand the state of health and environmental degradation already thrust upon communities, and denied requests to require distribution of health studies and EPA data about health impacts to the communities living near proposed drilling sites.

“We asked for strict setback requirements based on population studies, including Colorado School of Public Health studies associating negative birth outcomes and childhood leukemia with living near oil and gas production,” says Lauren Swain, Coordinator for Physicians for Social Responsibility Colorado. “We requested that community health assessments and oil and gas complaint records be included in the cumulative impacts analysis, but the ECMC rejected these basic requests. Without science-based setbacks, solid health data, and a mandate to reject permits that put air pollution levels over state or federal limits, the rules adopted will do little, if anything, to reduce asthma and cardiovascular hospitalizations, cancers, and premature deaths associated with oil and gas emissions, especially in disproportionately impacted communities.”

Evidence was presented in the hearing that in a high emissions scenario, Colorado faces temperature increases of up to 12.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than we would with adequate emissions reductions and that Colorado already experiences substantial climate impacts. The Commission had long refused to consider impacts on climate as a cumulative impact of oil and gas until it was finally directed to do so by the legislature in 2023 and 2024. In response, the new rules take the small step of requiring oil and gas operators to submit information about the ratio of their greenhouse gas emissions to their production, but the rules do not set any limits to greenhouse gas emissions and do not consider baseline conditions caused by climate change, such as local warming.

“The Colorado agriculture and recreation industries are already experiencing devastating impacts of climate,” says Heidi Leathwood, a climate policy analyst with 350 Colorado. “We are all suffering from increased heat as Colorado warms faster than the national average, and lower-income communities living in heat islands without access to air conditioning are even more at risk. As the 4th largest US producer of oil and the 8th largest producer of methane gas, we bear an outsized responsibility. Under these rules, Colorado is not doing its part: the Commission should have passed rules to set concrete limits on greenhouse gas emissions, both for each operator and for the industry in Colorado as a whole. We have no time to lose.”

In 2024, legislators strengthened the Commission’s mandate to protect disproportionately impacted communities. In response, the Commission adopted rules that increase public notice and participation. The Commission calls these “protections” for disproportionately impacted communities, but procedural justice and protection from harm are not equivalent. These rules moderately increase the number of people who would receive notice of proposed wells and give disproportionately impacted community members additional support in participation in the permitting process. This creates more certainty for operators about their requirements but no certainty for the impacted communities that they will be protected by permit denials. And impacted communities will be under increasing threat from new development: Civitas stated they expect the majority of their operations to be in disproportionately impacted communities (see Commission hearing on September 9, 2024, starting at 6:03:26.)

It’s time we prioritize health, and as a matter of fact, the law is on our side in this regard,” says Rachael Lehman of Black and Brown Parents United. “For too long economic impacts have been the only metric for success and been a guiding principle in permitting. Let’s be clear: disproportionately impacted communities have not received the fruits of this industry-fueled economy. On the contrary, they have borne the brunt of the physical, mental, and emotional costs from cumulative impacts. Extraction without guardrails from our most precious resource will permanently change our earth and our neighborhoods into places no one can survive.”

Without any rule that requires the ECMC Director or the Commission to deny a permit, all decisions are up to the discretion of the Director or Commission on a case-by-case basis, making it all too easy for the Commission to continue their long-standing practice of mitigating adverse impacts instead of avoiding them as required by SB19-181. These rules do not satisfy the intent of legislators nor the letter of the law that requires the ECMC to protect the public and the environment. At a time when Colorado needs leadership the Commission just requires operators to fill out more forms, refusing to take a stand on the essential question of when is one more well too much.

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The oil and gas industry has destroyed climate stability and degraded communities and wildlife habitats with noise, odor, soil and water contamination, air pollution, and toxic risk. The Commission has not established a real plan to stop the immense build-up of impacts in places that are already at risk. They have missed an opportunity to enact comprehensive substantive protections to place the health of the public and environment ahead of industry profits.

–Heidi Leathwood, Climate Policy Analyst, 350 Colorado

Colorado has waited far too long for meaningful cumulative impact rules, and today, we learn that Colorado must wait yet longer for meaningful action to limit the cumulative impacts of oil & gas extraction on our communities, our air, our water, our wildlife, and our climate. Through these rules, we get more and more procedural hoops, but we will also get more and more of the steady expansion of oil & gas extraction across Colorado. The oil and gas industry told the Commission during this rulemaking hearing that expansion will especially target our communities that are already disproportionately impacted by more than their fair share of the pollution burden. These rules are insufficient to protect disproportionately impacted communities in Colorado and, equally troubling, insufficient to prevent the creation of new ones.

-Bobbie Mooney, Beyond Oil & Gas Campaign Coordinator, 350 Colorado

We asked for strict setback requirements based on population studies, including Colorado School of Public Health studies associating negative birth outcomes and childhood leukemia with living near oil and gas production. We requested that community health assessments and oil and gas complaint records be included in the cumulative impacts analysis, but the ECMC rejected these basic requests. Without science-based setbacks, solid health data, and a mandate to reject permits that put air pollution levels over state or federal limits, the rules adopted will do little, if anything, to reduce asthma and cardiovascular hospitalizations, cancers, and premature deaths associated with oil and gas emissions, especially in disproportionately impacted communities.

-Lauren Swain, PSR Colorado – Physicians for Social Responsibility

“It’s time we prioritize health, and as a matter of fact, the law is on our side in this regard. For too long economic impacts have been the only metric for success and been a guiding principle in permitting. Let’s be clear disproportionately impacted communities have not received the fruits of this industry fueled economy. To the contrary they have borne the brunt of the physical, mental and emotional costs from cumulative impacts. Extraction without guardrails from our most precious resource will permanently change our earth and our neighborhoods into places no one can survive.”

–Rachael Lehman, Black and Brown Parents United

New Polis Administration Rules Fail to Protect the Public from Fracking Impacts

Energy and Carbon Management Commission enacts rules that will allow continued drilling regardless of climate and health impacts

The Energy and Carbon Management Commission, an agency under the direction of Colorado Governor Polis, today passed cumulative impact rules that will continue the status quo of streamlining approval for drilling permit applications. The rules give Operators the responsibility for analyzing cumulative impacts, while establishing no conditions under which the Commission must deny permits — even in the disproportionately impacted communities the Commission is required by law to protect.

The adopted rules require oil and gas operators, who have an intrinsic bias and no expertise in cumulative impacts assessment, to conduct a cumulative impacts analysis. Commissioners rejected stakeholder demands to shift the responsibility for cumulative impacts analysis from the oil and gas operators back to the Commission and to adopt strong denial criteria to ensure permits are not approved if the analysis shows adverse cumulative impacts will be too great. Despite receiving evidence that fracking emissions are linked to health impacts well over 1 mile away from oil and gas facilities, the Commission refused to require baseline data to understand the state of health and environmental degradation already thrust upon communities, and denied requests to require distribution of health studies and EPA data about health impacts to the communities living near proposed drilling sites.

Evidence was presented in the hearing that in a high emissions scenario, Colorado faces temperature increases of up to 12.5 degrees Fahrenheit higher than we would with adequate emissions reductions, and that Colorado already experiences substantial climate impacts. The Commission had long refused to consider impacts to climate as a cumulative impact of oil and gas until it was finally directed to do so by the legislature in 2023 and 2024. In response, the new rules take the small step of requiring oil and gas operators to submit information about the ratio of their greenhouse gas emissions to their production, but the rules do not set any limits to greenhouse gas emissions and do not consider baseline conditions caused by climate change, such as local warming.

“The Colorado agriculture and recreation industries are already experiencing devastating impacts of climate,” says Heidi Leathwood, climate policy analyst with 350 Colorado. “We are all suffering from increased heat as Colorado warms faster than the national average, and lower income communities living in heat islands without access to air conditioning are even more at risk. As the 4th largest US producer of oil and the 8th largest producer of methane gas, we bear an outsized responsibility. Under these rules, Colorado is not doing its part: the Commission should have passed rules to set concrete limits on greenhouse gas emissions, both for each operator and for the industry in Colorado as a whole. We have no time to lose.”

In 2024, legislators strengthened the Commission’s mandate to protect disproportionately impacted communities. In response, the Commission adopted rules that increase public notice and participation. The Commission calls these “protections” for disproportionately impacted communities, but procedural justice and protection from harm are not equivalent. These rules moderately increase the number of people who would receive notice of proposed wells, and give disproportionately impacted community members additional support in participation in the permitting process. This creates more certainty for operators about their requirements, but no certainty for the impacted communities that they will be protected by permit denials. And impacted communities will be under increasing threat from new development: Civitas stated they expect the majority of their operations to be in disproportionately impacted communities (see Commission hearing on September 9, 2024, starting at 6:03:26.)

It’s time we prioritize health, and as a matter of fact, the law is on our side in this regard,” says Rachael Lehman of Black and Brown Parents United. “For too long economic impacts have been the only metric for success and been a guiding principle in permitting. Let’s be clear disproportionately impacted communities have not received the fruits of this industry fueled economy. To the contrary they have borne the brunt of the physical, mental and emotional costs from cumulative impacts. Extraction without guardrails from our most precious resource will permanently change our earth and our neighborhoods into places no one can survive.”

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Quote deck:

The oil and gas industry has destroyed climate stability and degrades communities and wildlife habitat with noise, odor, soil and water contamination, air pollution, and toxic risk. The Commission has not established a real plan to stop the immense build-up of impacts in places that are already at risk. They have missed an opportunity to enact comprehensive substantive protections to place the health of the public and environment ahead of industry profits.

–Heidi Leathwood, Climate Policy Analyst, 350 Colorado

Colorado has waited far too long for meaningful cumulative impact rules and today we learn that Colorado must wait yet longer for meaningful action to limit the cumulative impacts of oil & gas extraction on our communities, our air, our water, our wildlife, and our climate. Through these rules we get more and more procedural hoops, but we will also get more and more of the steady expansion of oil & gas extraction across Colorado. The oil and gas industry told the Commission during this rulemaking hearing that expansion will especially target our communities that are already disproportionately impacted by more than their fair share of the pollution burden. These rules are insufficient to protect disproportionately impacted communities in Colorado, and equally troubling, insufficient to prevent the creation of new ones.

-Bobbie Mooney, Beyond Oil & Gas Campaign Coordinator, 350 Colorado