“We hear stories of people paying folks $50 through Craigslist to come and wear shirts supporting ‘Coal for America,’” Lisa Jackson, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator and surprise guest at the “Rebel With A Cause” gala, told a ballroom of activists on Thursday night.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson speaks in Denver. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“What’s really neat is the thousands of people who came because they care, the moms who came,” Jackson said to a receptive crowd that filled the Seawell Grand Ballroom at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts for dinner, a live auction and awards ceremony.

The audience stood and clapped when Jackson took the stage as the gala’s surprise guest. Her treatment here was quite different than what she receives in the nation’s capitol.

“It’s so rare that I walk into the room … and hear the applause that which counters those things I hear inside the Washington Beltway, which is that ‘average Americans just don’t care about air and water.’

“We know better,” she said.

Gov. John Hickenlooper at the "Rebel With A Cause" gala in Denver last night. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“We want to help states that are trying to ensure that the wealth and potential that lies in natural gas doesn’t come at a price that would be far too high,” she said, adding that the agency plans to roll out the first results of its study at the end of the year with more to follow as the information becomes available.

“Our heritage is no more beautifully on display than in the Rocky Mountains,” said Jackson, who is in Colorado to speak to a Denver high school today about science and technology. She also mentioned she’d be meeting with Gov. John Hickenlooper, who dropped in on the gala to socialize.

Some of Colorado’s biggest critics of the EPA weren’t in the room. But U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner, Mike Coffman and Doug Lamborn have consistently voted for legislation that weakens the U.S. government’s ability to regulate pollution that spoils the nation’s common air, water and land.

“We have a canon of environmental laws in this country that is under siege,” Jackson said.

To combat the undermining of environmental laws, two state conservation groups, Colorado Environmental Coalition and Colorado Conservation Voters, announced a merger at last night’s gala that will see Pete Maysmith at the helm of the new organization, which has not been named yet.

“Our stunning mountains, flowing rivers, gorgeous lakes, and clear blue skies brought us to Colorado and have kept us here,” Maysmith said. “We all know there is much more to be done to protect and preserve Colorado’s beauty and enhance the quality of life for all.”

Elise Jones, the outgoing executive director of Colorado Environmental Coalition, said the new group will “create an uber force for the environment, a juggernaut for Colorado’s natural heritage.”

Jones is leaving nonprofit work to run for a seat on the Boulder County Board of Commissioners.

The merger of the two organizations has been talked about for a number of years, according to the conservationists, and they said now is the time to combine the strengths of both groups: Colorado Environmental Coalition’s policy, advocacy and organizing work and Colorado Conservation Voters’ focus on electing pro-environment candidates to public office and holding them accountable.

Officials for the two groups say they have combined to affect more than 130 different bills at the state legislature in the past six years, taking on water conservation, air quality, energy efficiency and transit.

House Republicans passed a pair of provisions Friday that would stymie the military’s efforts to incorporate more renewable fuels into its supplies. The defense authorization bill now heads for a markup in the Senate Armed Services Committee, where Democrats are preparing to go to battle.

“Continued reliance on foreign oil puts U.S. troops at unnecessary risk on and off the battlefield,” reads a letter written last week from Sens. Mark Udall, D-Colo., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, to Navy Admiral Jonathan Greenert soliciting his opinion on the House’s actions.

“In addition, the fiscal costs related to DOD’s dependence on fossil fuels are staggering. The annual Pentagon fuel bill increases by $130 million for every dollar increase in the cost per barrel of oil,” the letter continued. “This year alone, the Department of Defense will face an additional $1.3 billion bill as a result of the recent rise in fuel prices. Given that our military consumes approximately 300,000 barrels of oil per day, research into alternative fuels is a strategic and economic necessity.”

In response, Admiral Greenert wrote back (pdf) this week, saying attempts to obstruct the military’s transition to alternative fuels “will impede America’s energy security.” He referenced a May 16 statement from his superiors that lamented the House provisions would affect the Department of Defense’s “ability to procure alternative fuels and would further increase American reliance on fossil fuels, thereby contributing to geopolitical instability and endangering” U.S. interests abroad.

Soldiers set up a solar panel. (Photo: U.S. Department of Defense)

The military is emerging as a leader in the country’s clean energy movement, setting a goal of producing three gigawatts of renewable energy by 2025, or enough energy to power 750,000 homes. Each branch of the military is expected to kick in a gigawatt of energy, with the Navy taking the lead.

Not only are fossil fuels expensive, but transporting liquid fuel is an additional burden on the troops. And too often a deadly one. Many of America’s troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have been killed guarding fuel convoys and defending fuel resupply lines. According to Sierra Magazine: One out of every 24 fuel convoys in Afghanistan, and one out of 38 in Iraq, led to the death of a soldier in 2007. In 2007 alone, that adds up to hundreds dead given the 6,000 recorded fuel convoys. Between 2003 and 2010 more than 3,000 troops have been killed or wounded while moving fuel.

Burning oil and gas also creates more work for the armed forces.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta recently noted that “rising sea levels, severe droughts, the melting of the polar caps, the more frequent and devastating natural disasters all raise demand for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.”

The defense authorization bill passed the House by a vote of 299 to 120. Colorado Republicans Scott Tipton, Mike Coffman, Doug Lamborn and Cory Gardner all voted for it as did Democrat Ed Perlmutter. Colorado Democrats Diana DeGette and Jared Polis voted against the defense bill.

Rep. Coffman

“By forcing our military to adopt high-cost renewable energies, while at the same time pushing for reductions in military personnel, the president will ultimately force further reductions to achieve his costly Green Energy initiative while also meeting his demands for a smaller military,” Coffman said earlier this year.

The stage is now set for a showdown over the military’s energy spending between Sens. Udall, Shaheen and Begich and Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., who have decried the military’s shift away from fossil fuels. The arguments just may come down to dollars and cents.

“There is a clear need to find cost-competitive alternative fuels, given the fiscal challenges the Navy is facing in FY12 alone due to increases in the price of fuel,” Admiral Greenert wrote to the senators.

Gary Wockner speaking at the state Capitol on Wednesday. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“We’re all seeking common-sense solutions to ensure the safety of natural gas production,” DeGette said, “but with all due respect, requiring disclosure after fracking has already occurred seems less common-sense and more ‘closing the door after the horse has left the barn.’

“Colorado has historically benefited greatly from a strong energy economy,” the congresswoman from Denver continued. “Our state’s vast natural gas reserves offer the promise of new jobs, new energy, and a stronger economy for the long-term. But it would truly be a devil’s bargain if the price we pay for oil and gas jobs is the health of our families and the integrity of our precious public lands.”

Companies rely on fracking — a process in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is flushed into the ground to release oil and gas deposits buried beneath rock — to drill most wells in the modern American West. A patchwork of state and local regulations has sprung up to try to address the impacts of fracking on the public’s health and the environment.

The Obama administration has placed an emphasis on reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, advocating an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that takes advantage of fossil fuels as well as cleaner resources like wind and solar. The president has singled out natural gas, noting that America has an almost 100-year supply that could create more than 600,000 jobs in the next decade.

Lobbyists for big oil companies like ExxonMobil worked with the Obama administration’s Office of Management and Budget to weaken the original Interior regulation proposed in February.

Despite the loosening of the proposed fracking rule, oil and gas proponents criticized Salazar’s offer.

“We will be doing a thorough review of the proposal but at first glance it indicates that the Department of the Interior and, in particular the Bureau of Land Management, may not fully appreciate the significant regulatory steps already undertaken by states such as Colorado, Texas, Wyoming and others to oversee the safe and responsible development of natural gas through the use of hydraulic fracturing,” said Tom Amontree, executive vice president for America’s Natural Gas Alliance.

Industry representatives contend that states are in better position to make rules governing fracturing since they each have their own unique geologic conditions and on-the-ground experts.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association worries the Interior rule may conflict with state laws.

“Hydraulic fracturing is a highly engineered process which requires competent and knowledgeable supervision by regulators familiar with geologic conditions and technical specifications. Fortunately, in Colorado, every aspect of drilling is regulated by the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, the state agency with technical knowledge of Colorado’s geological basins,” COGA wrote in an email. “With the adoption of the new [fracking] disclosure rule in Colorado, we are now operating under one of the strongest rules in the country. This new rule has been characterized as the most transparent and stringent set of hydraulic fracturing regulations and is setting the pace for the rest of the country.”

Colorado’s rules, however, have been called “empty words on a page” because of the 516 spills in 2011 the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission only assessed five fines. Watchdog groups contend the state’s commissioners are too cozy with industry. They demand more oversight.

States are struggling to keep pace with the surge in fracking and horizontal drilling.

In Colorado, local communities are fighting to have a say in how drilling is regulated, while Gov. John Hickenlooper and industry groups push for from-the-state-down rule-making.

Studies show fracking can contaminate groundwater, pollute the air and trigger earthquakes.

A field oversight hearing of the U.S. House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources was held in Denver on Wednesday, led by chairman Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado Springs. In his opening remarks, Lamborn said “states have worked diligently to implement hydraulic fracturing regulations on their own lands” and he accused the Obama administration of hijacking those efforts and imposing its own blanket set of regulations with little state or tribal input.

Outside the hearing, critics called the subcommittee “a dog-and-pony show.” A group of fracking opponents took to the steps of the state Capitol where they unfurled a banner reading “Welcome Flat Earth Society” with photos of U.S. Reps. Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner, Lamborn and Mike Coffman.

Gary Wockner, state program director for Clean Water Action, labeled the four Republican congressmen from Colorado the “Flat Earth Society” because, to them, “what is up is down what is left is right and facts defy reality. They say the Obama administration is hindering oil and gas production but facts say that oil production in Colorado in 2011 was at an all time high. Natural gas production in Colorado in 2010 was at an all-time high. They say the Obama administration is hindering the leasing of public lands yet only 25 percent of the lands that they have leases on are being drilled – over 3 million acres they hold leases on are not being drilled. They say that the Obama administration is hindering drilling permits from moving forward at the same time the oil and gas industry is sitting on 602 permits they are not using. They say the Obama administration has slowed down the production of oil and gas, instead the Obama administration has increased the production of oil and in Colorado over what the Bush administration did. What we’re seeing from these congressmen are fake solutions to fake problems, including the three bills they introduced in the House last week.”

Tipton, Lamborn, Gardner and Coffman are in the pockets of big oil and gas companies, Wockner alleged, noting that over $700,000 has been donated to their campaigns. In return, he said the congressmen voted to give the industry $9 billion in tax breaks in 2011 alone.

Representatives for the congressmen could not be reached for comment.

Obama has called for an end to subsidies for the nation’s biggest oil and gas companies but members of the House and Senate whose campaigns have benefited from the industry continue to resist.

“As the president has made clear, this administration’s energy strategy is an all-out effort to boost American production of every available source of energy,” Salazar said in a prepared statement after releasing today’s draft rule. “As we continue to offer millions of acres of America’s public lands for oil and gas development, it is critical that the public have full confidence that the right safety and environmental protections are in place. The proposed rule will modernize our management of well stimulation activities – including hydraulic fracturing – to make sure that fracturing operations conducted on public and Indian lands follow common-sense industry best practices.”

The rule would affect drilling on 700 million acres of Bureau of Land Management land plus another 56 million acres of Indian lands, where thousands of oil and gas wells are drilled each year.

But that may change soon.

The Bureau of Land Management is proposing to offer 21 of the 22 parcels eligible for auction this August in a section of western Colorado where oil and gas companies have set their sights. A few coal mines and dozens of oil and gas wells are already scattered throughout the area, but many residents say additional drilling could be detrimental to the region’s economy, which relies on clean land to grow fruits and vegetables that end up on countless dinner and restaurant tables.

The prospect of the lease sale is already damaging the reputations of farmers and ranchers who say they are encountering customers who falsely believe their food is polluted from oil and gas drilling.

“At our ranch we raise natural grass-fed beef and specialty hays, which are sold to buyers across the country who are interested in quality products that are not tainted with chemicals,” said Landon Deane at Eagle Butte Ranch. “Leasing this land threatens our domestic and irrigation water supplies, and could cause irreversible damage to our reputation and the quality of our products.”

Proposed drilling land next door to Big B's organic apple orchards. (Image: Big B's)

Brent Helleckson of Stone Cottage Cellars is among a delegation of business owners and residents in the North Fork Valley who went to Washington, D.C., last week to ask that the leases be withdrawn.

“Our concern about leasing these lands for industrial development compelled us to travel to D.C. — at the very time we should be preparing our vineyards and getting ready for a busy season — to tell the BLM and the Obama administration face to face that farming, wineries, tourism, and oil and gas drilling, simply do not mix. This lease sale threatens the North Fork economy, my business, and my family,” Helleckson said.

Letters both opposing and supporting more drilling in Delta and Gunnison counties came pouring into the BLM, which closed its public comment period Friday.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife took issue with the BLM’s current plan, with its regional manager Tom Spezze contending “the management decisions for oil and gas regarding leasing crucial deer and elk winter range with seasonal stipulations for seismic and drilling activities do not reflect the best available science.”

In a letter to the BLM (pdf), Spezze points out other problems with the federal agency’s planning.

The BLM, for example, stated in its preferred alternative that it could clean up developed lands 30 years from the time of the initial drilling but Spezze said that is “not consistent with the historical progression of oil and gas development activities in Colorado and other parts of the United States. Our experience is that oil and gas fields in Colorado and other parts of the United States often produce for longer than 30 years — sometimes significantly longer.” Spezze also wrote that the BLM ignored the Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s recommendations on how to best protect the golden eagle and peregrine falcon nest sites that are in the proposed drilling region, along with bald eagle winter roost sites, fish, and winter habitat and migration corridors for elk and other big game.

BLM field manager Barbara Sharrow in Montrose said she is reviewing the comments.

“We are looking at all the comments that came in but we haven’t read them all yet,” she said.

Sharrow said the BLM hopes to narrow down which parcels will be leased by May 11.

Some local residents support the proposed drilling. Delta County’s board of commissioners initially sided with opponents to oil and gas drilling and recommended a blanket deferral of the parcels but in its latest comment supported the BLM’s preferred alternative with the addition of other conditions and deferrals to guard watersheds from contamination.

Gunnison County, however, remains opposed to the BLM moving forward with the auction.

In a letter to Sharrow (pdf), Gunnison County commissioners said the leases should be deferred until an environmental impact statement and management plan are completed.

The commissioners didn’t sound impressed with the BLM’s due diligence.

“We are aware of several references that can inform a considered and reasoned analysis that should precede any determination to lease that are publicly available and do not appear in the bibliography of this EA. Not the least of them is the list of hazard and wildlife mapping information we referenced in our February 7, 2012 scoping letter, which information ought to be considered in determining whether lease sales are appropriate, in whole or in part. We urge the BLM to review and respond to that considerable information, and to also review [a list of reading materials the Gunnison County commissioners compiled for the BLM].”

Aside from noise and eye pollution, oil and gas drilling — and everything else that comes with it — can contaminate the air, water and ground. The energy industry is booming in Colorado and across the nation thanks to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which is a method of breaking up rock to release oil and gas deposits deep underground. U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, D-Colorado, are calling for stronger laws to protect public health and the environment.

Since 2001, the average number of 3.0-or-greater earthquakes each year spiked significantly, culminating in a six-fold increase in 2011 over 20th century levels, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey abstract to be presented Wednesday at a Seismological Society of America meeting.

From 1970 until 2000, the middle of the country averaged 21 quakes, then the average jumped to 50 in 2009, 87 in 2010 and 134 in 2011. Government scientists examined regions where energy production changed in recent years and although the data doesn’t suggest that hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” itself is inducing tremors, it did show that in some locations the increased seismic activity coincided with the injection of fracking wastewater in deep disposal wells.

“In preliminary findings, our scientists cite a series of examples for which an uptick in seismic activity is observed in areas where the disposal of wastewater through deep-well injection increased significantly. These areas tend to be in the middle of the country – mostly in Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Ohio,” David Hayes, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Interior, wrote in a recent blog that clarified the quakes were big enough to be felt by a great number of people but not big enough to do serious damage.

Scientists first tied the disposal of resource-extraction wastewater with the induction of earthquakes in a Colorado case dating back decades. They determined a swarm of small quakes were triggered by wastewater injections from 1962 to 1966 at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal well near Denver. They have also found the extraction of oil and gas can potentially trigger earthquakes when changes in the underground stresses created by the removal of huge volumes of oil, gas or water are large enough.

A seismic reading from the 5.6-magnitude earthquake in Oklahoma last year.

Earthquakes naturally occur around the world but the middle of the United States hasn’t been known for having many of them — until fracking became mainstream. Last month, officials in Ohio said data “strongly indicates” a swarm of quakes there over a nine-month period last year were caused by the disposal of wastewater from natural gas extraction.

Concerns about the impacts of energy extraction, and fracking in particular, are mounting in resource-rich areas where residents are wary of the potential and actual impacts on air, water, noise, scenery and traffic. With the nation’s leaders committed to boosting domestic energy supplies, U.S. oil and gas exploration is in full swing with 1,950 active rigs, according to Houston-based Baker Hughes.

President Obama on Friday issued an executive order to better coordinate fracking oversight with the establishment of an “interagency working group” with members from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, Energy Department, National Economic Council and other bodies.

The president’s announcement drew praise from oil and gas companies, which feared excessive and confusing rules from the 10 or more U.S. agencies that are considering new industry regulations.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado and the author and lead sponsor of the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act, also praised Obama’s directive.

Rep. Diana DeGette

In Colorado, fracking and the opposition to it are fierce.

Boulder County commissioners are scheduled to vote this afternoon on whether to modify or continue a moratorium on new oil and gas application. An anti-fracking group is planning a protest on the Pearl Street mall where they are calling for the commissioners to ban fracking throughout unincorporated Boulder County. On Tuesday, Longmont City Council, which also has a drilling moratorium in place, will consider its own oil and gas regulations. Other communities that are taking a close look at drilling regulations include Colorado Springs, Commerce City, Erie, Aurora, Arapahoe County, Douglas County, Elbert County, El Paso County and Huerfano County.

The EPA is also expected to issue new air-quality standards for drilling this week.

The U.S. Geological Survey, meanwhile, is continuing its research of induced seismicity. It has also partnered with universities to deploy seismometers at sites of known or possible injection-induced earthquakes in Arkansas, southern Colorado, Oklahoma, and Ohio.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (Photo via http://degette.house.gov)

“The researchers found higher lifetime cancer risks for people living closer to the wells,” reads the letter from DeGette and Rep. Henry Waxman. “They also concluded that these nearby residents have a higher risk of experiencing neurological and respiratory health effects, such as headaches, throat and eye irritation, impaired lung capacity, dizziness, fatigue, numbness in the limbs, and tremors.”

The study that DeGette, D-Colorado, and Waxman, D-California, referenced was based on a three-year review of the Battlement Mesa area of Garfield County where several companies are drilling for natural gas that a class-action lawsuit claims is endangering the community.

Escalated levels of ozone pollution have been recorded in the Uintah Basin in Utah and the Green River Basin in Wyoming near oil drilling sites and researchers say residents living near hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” operations in the Piceance and Denver-Julesberg basins in Colorado are also susceptible to dirtier air, which can impair breathing and worsen respiratory problems such as asthma.

Regulators at all levels of government are trying to establish safe standards for air emissions from fracking, which the EPA has also, at least preliminarily, linked to ground water contamination in Wyoming. Opponents of oil and gas drilling contend existing regulations are too lenient and that they are not adequately enforced. A recent report found there were 516 spills in Colorado last year and only five of them resulted in fines for the companies that allowed them to happen.

Gov. John Hickenlooper recently convened a task force to “help clarify and better coordinate” the regulatory jurisdiction between state and local governments but his critics claim the task force is a Trojan horse, designed to take away rights from local governments and instead leave their fates up to the allegedly inept state system. Boulder County, Longmont and Colorado Springs have already temporarily halted drilling activity while Commerce City, Erie and Aurora, Arapahoe County, Douglas County, Elbert County, El Paso County and Huerfano County are vying for their own regulations.

DeGette and U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D- Colorado, have previously asked President Obama to strengthen federal environmental and public health standards to protect against the risks associated with fracking. In speeches this year and last, Obama has emphasized natural gas as a key resource in his “all-of-the-above” strategy to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil.

Many Coloradans are protesting the increased drilling in the state, and asking for the federal government to stave off oil and gas development in the North Fork Valley and other locales.

Here is DeGette and Waxman’s letter in its entirety:

April 3, 2012

The Honorable Lisa Jackson
Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Ariel Rios Building
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20460

Dear Administrator Jackson:

EPA is working to finalize new standards for oil and gas operations to reduce emissions of smog-forming volatile organic compounds and toxic air pollutants that can cause cancer and other serious health effects. As you consider these standards, we ask that you consider a new study from the Colorado School of Public Health that raises concerns about the potential public health impact of air emissions from unconventional gas drilling operations. The findings from this study, while preliminary, reinforce the importance of your forthcoming rules and the need for additional research.

Scientists at the Colorado School of Public Health examined three years of air monitoring data in Garfield County, Colorado and concluded that residents living near natural gas wells may face increased exposure to benzene, a known human carcinogen, and other toxic chemicals, such as ethylbenzene, toluene, and xylene. The researchers found higher lifetime cancer risks for people living closer to the wells. They also concluded that these nearby residents have a higher risk of experiencing neurological and respiratory health effects, such as headaches, throat and eye irritation, impaired lung capacity, dizziness, fatigue, numbness in the limbs, and tremors.

The authors concluded:

[P]reliminary results indicate that health effects resulting from air emissions during development of unconventional natural gas resources are most likely to occur in residents living nearest to the well pads and warrant further study. Risk prevention efforts should be directed towards reducing air emission exposures for persons living and working near wells during well completions.

We support the responsible and safe production of U.S. oil and natural gas resources. The good news is that we can control potentially harmful air emissions from drilling operations by implementing proven technology and best practices already in use today. We hope that you will consider the results of this new study in your rulemaking, and we look forward to reviewing EPA’s new rules once finalized.

Sincerely,

Henry A. Waxman
Ranking Member

Diana DeGette
Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

“Mitt Romney’s declaration that he would ‘get rid of’ Planned Parenthood is yet another dangerous and reckless attempt to score points with the far right at the expense of the health of millions of women,” DeGette said in a release.

“Planned Parenthood provides critical and necessary health services like annual exams, cancer screenings, and family planning for three million women across this country, and in some places their clinics provide the only care for hundreds of miles…. So today it’s clear once again that Mr. Romney’s ideas are too extreme for our nation and the women of America will not stand idly by while he threatens their health care.”

Democrats seized on remarks Romney made during an interview with St. Louis TV station KDSK, mostly reacting to the idea that Romney was seeking to eliminate Planned Parenthood altogether. Yet, it seems clear from context, the candidate was talking about “getting rid of” federal funding for the organization. His language is ambiguous, however, and KDSK teased the story with a suggestive headline: “Mitt Romney: Planned Parenthood, we’re going to get rid of that.”

Romney was answering a question about which programs he would cut to reduce government spending.

“Of course you get rid of Obamacare, that’s the easy one, but there are others. Planned Parenthood, we’re gonna get rid of that. The subsidy for Amtrak, I would eliminate that. The National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, both excellent programs, but we can’t afford to borrow money to pay for these things.”

In a call with Colorado reporters today, Obama for America Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter made reference to Romney’s remarks, characterizing them as part of a pattern that exposes Romney as a pandering candidate who is driving moderate voters farther away each day the GOP primary continues.

“He is trailing Obama by 18 percent among women and today he says he wants to get rid of Planned Parenthood,” she said. “Women in Colorado don’t share Romney’s vision of America.”

Last month, Colorado affiliates of the national breast cancer group Komen for the Cure made news for successfully pushing back against efforts by anti-abortion members of the national management team to end Komen funding for Planned Parenthood clinics here.

DeGette lauded the Colorado Komen leaders at the time and referred to those events in her release today.

“In recent weeks women have come together to stand up for Planned Parenthood and the important role it plays in their health and their community,” she said.

[Image: Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, C-Span screenshot ]

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

DeGette, the head of the Pro-Choice Caucus on Capitol Hill, has been a lead critic of efforts among Republican members of the 112th Congress to fight abortion in the United States by passing legislation that limits women’s access to health care services.

DeGette’s Women’s Health Wednesdays will feature a series of one-minute floor speeches on the issue each Wednesday for the rest of the year that seek to push back against the anti-abortion legislative drive that has dominated much debate over the last two years in the House.

DeGette’s remarks as delivered differed slightly from the prepared version sent out to members of the media and reprinted below:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce the Inaugural Women’s Health Wednesday. Starting today, and continuing for every Wednesday, Members of this distinguished body will take to the floor to stand against the unceasing attacks on women’s health care levied by my colleagues across the aisle and the extreme right wing across the nation.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to kick off this first Women’s Health Wednesday by reminding everyone this is 2012, not the Dark Ages. Let me say that again: This is 2012. Yet because of the actions of this Congress, and straight up to the positions of their candidates for president, we are actually debating birth control. Birth control. 99 percent of women have used birth control at some point in their lives, including 98 percent of Catholic women, and 1.5 million women rely on it for non-contraceptive purposes to treat a variety of medical conditions.

The Institute of Medicine has determined, based upon science, that birth control is a fundamental part of women’s preventive care. Yet, here we are debating birth control.

Mr. Speaker, everywhere I go women stop me to express their disbelief and outrage that we are actually debating birth control. Birth control saves lives, helps prevent unintended pregnancies, improves the outcomes for children, and reduces abortion. Those are all good things for women; for their families; for our nation. So why on earth would my colleagues across the aisle and their party launch a massive effort to limit access to birth control? This is 2012. We all know better.

Mr.Speaker, I am proud to stand here as the co-chair of the Pro-Choice caucus and kickoff Women’s Health Wednesdays. Over the next few minutes, and over the next several weeks and months, I look forward to hearing from so many of my colleagues, their wisdom and experience, and their perspective as to why we should all join together and stand up for the health of the women of America.

The Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences has recommended birth control be classified a preventative health service for women. Birth control not only prevents unwanted pregnancies but also works to head off diseases.

DeGette was joined by a number of colleagues in delivering speeches today, including Reps Carolyn McCarthy (D-New York), Susan Davis (D-Calif), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) and Suzanne Bonamici (D-Oregon).

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

“[It's] an opportunity to take a stand against the unceasing attacks on women’s health care levied by the Leadership of the House of Representatives and their colleagues in the U.S. Senate,” DeGette’s office said in a release.

The speeches begin at noon in Washington and will be streamed live on C-Span. Women’s Health Wednesdays will run until the end of the year.

DeGette, head of the congressional pro-choice caucus, has been a lead opponent of the anti-abortion legislation that has featured as a top priority in the Republican-dominated 112th Congress, which opened in January of last year and will end in January of 2013. Because abortion is legal in the United States, the bills have sought to limit access to the medical procedure by cutting back on women’s reproductive health services generally, by slashing federal funds for Planned Parenthood clinics, for instance, and limiting insurance coverage for full-range family planning and contraception.

In an extended floor exchange on a bill called the “Protect Life Act” last October, DeGette said she felt like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into a world “where logic has been turned on its head.”

“When I listen to this debate, it’s really clear to me that the proponents of this bill, their main concern is not federal funding of abortion,” she said. “Their main concern is they want abortion to be illegal, and so here’s my view– having debated this now for 15 years in this body– here’s my view: If the majority wants to pass a bill banning abortion, pass a bill banning abortion, and we’ll fight it out in the courts. Don’t make claims that there is somehow federal funding for abortion when in fact there is none in order to confuse the issues and to try to confuse the American public.”

Today, in her inaugural Women’s Health Wednesday speech, DeGette plans to address birth control as “critical preventive care,” as she put it in the release sent out this morning.

“Ninety-nine percent of women have used birth control at some point in their life and 15 million of them use it for non-contraceptive purposes,” it reads. “The Institute of Medicine made a scientific determination that access to contraception is a critical component of preventive women’s health care.”

Abortion-policy analysts have said Republicans last year effectively ended the truce that has existed for decades among lawmakers regarding public funding for abortion. Federal funding is now and has been for years restricted to pregnancies that endanger the mother’s life or that come as the product of rape and/or incest.

The “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” introduced in the first wave of legislation last year by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), set the bar with provisions meant to eliminate tax breaks on insurance policies that cover abortions, permanently prohibit tax-funded abortions across all federal programs, like Medicaid, and end funding for abortions in Washington D.C.

The bill originally aimed to recast the definition of “rape” in order to lower the number of pregnancies eligible for funding. Smith proposed that only “forcible” rape pregnancies would fall into the funding category. “Forcible” rape is not a legal term, however, and so the bill seemed designed to rule out statutory rape, date rape, rapes of drugged victims and so on. The provision caused an uproar among groups that asked what kind of rape there is other than “forcible” and the language was ultimately stripped from the bill.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

The Republican-controlled House approved U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s bill to increase oil shale development on public lands in addition to plans to drill onshore in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico waters. But the representatives didn’t stop there. They also voted to try to force the approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

The energy package passed 237-197 with 21 Democrats joining the GOP majority and an equal number of Republicans siding with the minority. It will now go to the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Oil shale is a commercially unproven commodity. It requires immense quantities of water and energy to heat the rock. Its ominous history is epitomized by “Black Sunday” when ExxonMobil pulled the plug on a huge oil shale operation in western Colorado in 1982 that left the region in disarray.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, bundled the energy bills into a broader transportation package, most of which still hasn’t made it out of the House. Despite a century of failed efforts to make oil shale profitable, along with a Congressional Budget Office report that projects oil shale leases will total less than $100,000 annually over the next decade, Boehner has said energy drilling will fund his $260 billion transit package. The Congressional Budget Office report, however, projected Boehner’s bill would, over 10 years, leave the highway trust fund $78 billion in the red.

Shell in-situ oil shale research project in Colorado's Rio Blanco County.

Whereas Lamborn’s bill authorizes up to 2 million acres of public land for oil shale exploration in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Management recommends a half million acres be set aside for leasing.

U.S. Reps. Diane DeGette and Jared Polis, D-Colorado, argued against Lamborn’s proposal, saying that Coloradans oppose oil shale leases since they would hurt the state’s agriculture and recreation economy by depleting limited water resources and allowing oil companies to lock away more public land at fire-sale prices. The last time oil shale production went bust in Colorado, $85 million in annual payroll disappeared in Garfield and Mesa counties over two years, DeGette told her colleagues.

“Shell Corporation estimates it could be 2020 before a company could be ready to develop a federal oil shale lease,” DeGette said. “We need real solutions for funding our nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure. Using H.R. 3408 as a funding source for the surface transportation reauthorization is not a good faith effort to create the jobs Americans so desperately need.”

Polis introduced an amendment to strike the oil shale legislation from the highway bill. It failed.

Indeed, it was a good week in Congress for fossil fuels and a bad one for renewable energy.

An extension of the wind production tax credit was initially folded into an earlier version of a plan to extend the nation’s payroll-tax cut and unemployment insurance bill. But when a deal was reached Thursday, the wind production tax credit was left out. All of Colorado’s congressional delegation except Lamborn support the extension of the wind tax credit, which debuted in 1992.

The credit could still be tied to other bills or come as stand-alone legislation. It has lapsed in the past.

“Colorado will suffer tremendous economic dislocation if the wind production tax credit is not renewed on a timely basis this year because our state has become a hub for wind industry manufacturing,” said Craig Cox, executive director of Interwest Energy Alliance. “Colorado is the nation’s eighth-largest generator of wind power and hosts the world’s leading national laboratory in wind and other renewable energy technologies. … If Congress fails to renew the production tax credit on a timely basis, many of Colorado’s 5,000-plus wind industry jobs are at risk, along with tens of thousands of jobs nationally. We have developed a truly American industry in the past five years, with over 60 percent of a typical wind turbine’s components manufactured right here in the United States. Failing to renew the production tax credit puts these jobs, and America’s international competitiveness, at risk.”

Developers can still qualify for the credit if their projects generate electricity by the end of the year. But without federal subsidies in 2013, wind proponents say many projects could be stalled or abandoned.