New rules still allow oil and gas projects near neighborhoods already suffering from pollution – The Denver Post

Earlier this month, Colorado’s oil and gas regulatory agency, the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC), released draft rules to change the way oil and gas projects are approved or denied. These draft rules fall far short of fulfilling the ECMC’s mission to regulate oil and gas development “in a manner that protects public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife.”

In September, ECMC has another chance to fulfill its obligation to protect Colorado communities. But once again, it appears that the interests of the oil and gas industry are being prioritized over the health of Colorado communities.

As members of the Colorado Environmental Justice Action Group, we call on ECMC and Governor Jared Polis to strengthen these rules to hold oil and gas polluters accountable and stop rampant oil and gas pollution from occurring in Colorado communities that are disproportionately impacted.

We represented two of the 22 members of the Environmental Justice Action Task Force appointed in 2021 and served as co-chairs of the Cumulative Environmental and Equity Impact Analysis subcommittee. The task force worked with community members and state partners extensively for nearly a year and ultimately developed a set of recommendations aimed at addressing environmental injustice in Colorado. The latest ECMC draft rules lack several essential provisions necessary to protect communities disproportionately affected by the harmful effects of oil and gas development.

We are not the only working group urging ECMC to strengthen these draft standards. Meera Fickling, director of building decarbonization for Western Resource Advocates, Hilda Nucete, health equity commissioner for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Ean Thomas Tafoya, state director for GreenLatinos Colorado, and Jamie Valdez, president of the Sierra Club’s Sangre de Cristo Group, all support the views expressed in this article.

The draft rules fail to protect neighborhoods near oil and gas operations, especially those already struggling with pollution and related health problems such as asthma, cancer or autoimmune disorders. By failing to require oil and gas activities to occur at least 2,000 feet from disproportionately affected communities and limiting public participation in the permitting process, the state is prioritizing industry profits over people’s safety and well-being.

By failing to protect Colorado communities—a crucial part of ECMC’s mission—these draft rules perpetuate environmental racism, as many of the Colorado communities that are most impacted by oil and gas pollution are communities of color and low-income communities. According to Protégete’s Colorado Latino Climate Justice Policy Handbook, Colorado counties with high Latino populations contain a disproportionately high number of oil and gas wells and a disproportionately low number of air quality monitoring stations. These proposed rules ignore the spirit of environmental justice and are not in line with the final recommendations we made as members of the Environmental Justice Action Working Group.

Our final recommendations included that state agencies should use the definition of disproportionately impacted communities (DIC) explained in detail here. But ECMC’s recent draft rules prioritize a different definition, called cumulatively impacted communities (CIC), which excludes many areas historically affected by oil and gas activities and nearly all communities on Colorado’s Western Slope. ECMC is not the only state agency using CIC. Several environmental organizations are involved in ongoing litigation with the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission over the use of the term CIC, which covers only a fraction of the communities that are included in the DIC definition.

ECMC should use the definition of communities affected by environmental injustices recommended by the task force and used by state legislators. This definition ensures that communities most affected by environmental injustices are accurately identified and protected.

In addition, the ECMC should strengthen its draft proposed rules in three ways:

• Close loopholes to ensure that no new oil and gas operations are permitted within 2,000 feet of DICs unless every resident living within that radius gives informed consent.

• Require air quality testing in a community before approving new oil and gas permits, and deny permits if oil and gas operations would drive air pollution to unhealthy levels.

• Establish and enforce strict limits on toxic ozone-causing air pollutants during the summer months, typically when air quality is worst along Colorado’s Front Range.

All Coloradans deserve the right to live in a healthy and safe environment. Instead of eliminating oil and gas pollution, ECMC’s latest draft rules give concessions to oil and gas polluters and ignore community concerns. This is not acceptable. Governor Polis and ECMC must protect and listen to the voices of communities most impacted by environmental racism, and hold oil and gas polluters accountable.

Renée Chacon is co-founder and executive director of Womxn from the Mountain and serves as a Ward III Councilmember on the Commerce City Council. Beatriz Soto is the Director of Protégete at Conservation Colorado and co-chair of the Clean Water for All Colorado Coalition.

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