“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.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a report (pdf) detailing the wasted opportunities, even as oil and gas executives claim the Obama administration is thwarting domestic energy development. The report added that 7,000 approved permits for drilling on federal and Indian lands are also unused.

Thompson Divide in Colorado is just one area where industry wants to drill despite the sentiments of nearby residents. (Photo courtesy of Save Thompson Divide)

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, and his Republican colleagues have aggressively pushed for more federal lands to be opened to oil and gas drilling and for continued oil shale research. The Interior has resisted those efforts, recently scaling back the amount of acreage available to oil shale development.

Last year, American oil production reached the highest level in nearly a decade and natural gas production reached an all-time high. Salazar said that America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since President Obama took office. The United States has cut net imports of oil by 10 percent – or a million barrels a day – in the last year alone, the report stated, adding that the nation’s refining sector was a net exporter last year for the first time in 60 years.

The report came as Interior’s Bureau of Land Management announced nominations and comments on available tracts to be considered for its scheduled November 2012 oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska – the second sale since Obama directed Interior to conduct annual oil and gas lease sales in the reserve. The BLM offered 3 million acres in the 2011 sale.

The Obama administration had been pushing back against industry claims that it hasn’t done enough to develop domestic energy. One week ago, on the day Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney dogged Obama’s energy policies at a campaign stop in Colorado, Salazar announced the approval of 3,675 new natural gas wells in Utah. The League of Conservation Voters and Priorities USA Action, meanwhile, claim Romney is “in the tank for Big Oil,” coloring him as the “$200 million man” because the Koch brothers have pledged to spend that amount to elect a Republican.

American Petroleum President and CEO Jack Gerard called the administration’s report a political ploy designed to distract American voters from the administration’s “failed” energy policy.

“Once again, the administration is trotting out claims about idle leases to divert attention from the fact it has been restricting oil and natural gas development, leasing less often, shortening lease terms, and going slow on permit approvals—actions which have undermined public support for the administration on energy,” Gerard said. “It is also increasing or threatening to increase industry’s development costs through higher taxes, higher royalty rates, and higher minimum lease bids.”

The BLM, however, continues to clear its backlog of oil and gas permits, issuing more new drilling permits than applications received. In 2011, the agency processed 5,000 permits compared to 4,278 applications received, the report said, adding the rate of permitting is at its highest level since 2002.

Bill Eikenberry, a third-generation Wyoming rancher and former associate state director of the BLM in Wyoming, suggested lawmakers should “step up incentives which require oil and gas companies to develop drilling permits and leases” that Interior approves.

“I’ve got a real problem with the oil and gas industry asking for more giveaways like cutting clean water protections that protect agriculture when they don’t use what they already have,” he said.

While the oil and gas industry and Republican lawmakers place an emphasis on the economic importance of public lands, there is also mounting evidence that keeping those same lands free of drilling can be a financial boon to communities who rely on them for tourism and recreation.

A survey conducted for the Small Business Majority released Tuesday showed that 63 percent of small business owners in Colorado say access to protected public lands and outdoor spaces is a major part of why they set up operations in the state. Nearly three quarters of them support the Obama administration’s ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy and two-thirds of them support Sen. Mark Udall’s proposal to better protect Browns Canyon and the Arkansas River Valley.

Last fall, over 100 economists — including 10 from Colorado — wrote President Obama and Congress urging them to protect more national parks, national monuments and wilderness areas.

“The rivers, lakes, canyons, and mountains found on public lands serve as a unique and compelling backdrop that has helped to transform the western economy from a dependence on resource extractive industries to growth from in-migration, tourism, and modern economy sectors such as finance, engineering, software development, insurance, and health care,” they wrote. “Increasingly, entrepreneurs are basing their business location decisions on the quality of life in an area. Businesses are recruiting talented employees by promoting access to beautiful, nearby public lands.”

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.

If Congress does not act, the tax credit will expire at the end of the year, putting thousands of jobs in Colorado at risk and even more nationwide. The wind energy sector has already begun layoffs in anticipation of the tax credit, according to Bennet and others.

National Wind Technology Center turbines near Golden. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton testified on behalf of extending the tax credit at a House Small Business Subcommittee hearing last week. Vestas Wind Technologies is a large employer in the 3rd Congressional District, where Tipton is up for re-election. His opponent, state House minority leader Sal Pace, has been critical of Tipton for not doing enough to get the wind production tax credit extended.

In the Senate, both Bennet and Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., have repeatedly tried in vain to attach the tax credit to bigger pieces of legislation. Here is today’s Fox News report:

Congressman Lamborn followed that bill up the same day, April 18, with the Streamlining Permitting of American Energy Act, or H.R. 4383, which would loosen the application requirements for permits and require the Secretary of the Interior to issue a permit within 30 days of receiving drilling applications. It also contains a clause requiring citizens to pay $5,000 to protest drilling projects.

Congressman Coffman, also on April 18, introduced the Providing Leasing Certainty Act, or H.R. 4382, which outlaws the public, local governments and stakeholders from reviewing lease sales.

A drilling protestor in Boulder. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“Taking away the public’s right to participate in decisions about land we own is criminal,” he said. “It’s clear that these representatives are working on behalf of industry groups like Western Energy Alliance [WEA] and not the public. Why else would they invite WEA Vice President Kathleen Sgamma to testify about why they should shut their own constituents out of decisions about what happens to their public lands?”

Phone and email messages left for the National Republican Congressional Committee and staffers at the congressmen’s campaign offices were not immediately returned.

Drilling has reached its highest level under President Obama than at any point since the Reagan administration. Domestic oil production hit an eight-year high in 2011, and natural gas production hit an all-time high that year. While Colorado’s conservative congressional delegation is pushing to lease more federal lands to the oil and gas industry, there are over 6,000 unused permits in the West alone.

“We should be discussing real solutions to gas prices, such as aggressively investing in high tech vehicles and renewable energy, increasing fuel efficiency for cars and trucks, and cracking down on Wall Street oil speculators,” Garrington said. “All this legislation will do is lock the public out of our public lands and put more money in the pocket of oil company CEOs.”

Climate change, urban demand and a burgeoning energy industry are tapping the Colorado River to death. The 1,450-mile waterway hasn’t reached its historic destination since the 1990s.

In recent months, the United States and Mexico have been in negotiations over a new allocation agreement that could help spring some life back into the Colorado River Delta. A coalition of conservation groups in the Southwest delivered more than 5,000 signatures this week to the U.S. Department of State urging officials to work with Mexico to restore water flow to the river delta.

“We need to focus on collaboration and compromise,” said Gary Wockner of Save the Colorado when he announced the conservation groups’ petition on Sunday. “The U.S. and Mexico have a historic opportunity to meet their own water needs while allotting a small flow back to the river.”

The Colorado River’s headwaters are in the state of its namesake where it collects much of its water west of the Continental Divide. To feed Denver and other cities and farmlands along the Front Range, where most of the state’s population lives, the water has to be pumped east over and through the Rocky Mountains. The river naturally flows in the other direction, through seven states and Mexico, supplying water for Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego and Baja California.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a former Colorado senator, spoke about the pressures on the Colorado River during the State of the Rockies Project conference this week at Colorado College where the degradation of the Colorado River Basin has been the central theme for students this year.

A scene from the Colorado River in Westwater Canyon on a recent spring day. (Photo courtesy of Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism)

Humans already drain over 5 trillion gallons of water a year from the Colorado River and a recent study shows that if climate change continues at its current rate, there soon won’t be enough water in the river to satisfy the 30 million people or so who depend on it. Additionally, planned diversions to quench the thirst of the urban masses are on the rise — many of them, like the proposed Flaming Gorge mega pipeline from a tributary in Wyoming to Colorado’s Front Range, are steeped in controversy. Add in the rush of oil and gas companies that require vast quantities of water to flush down the holes they drill in the ground and the Colorado River ranks as one of the nation’s most endangered rivers.

The Colorado River Delta used to be a 2-million acre wetland with one of the continent’s most vibrant migratory bird populations. Like a mirage in the desert, that has all disappeared. Low flows in the United States are now a threat to endangered fish, riparian ecosystems, native plants and animals.

There isn’t a specific water quantity on the main stem of the Colorado River designated for environmental needs, stressed a Colorado College State of the Rockies Report Card released this week. The student report is full of supporting data and first-person accounts, including those of two recent Colorado College graduates and field researchers, Will Stauffer-Norris and Zak Podmore, who completed a 110-day-long expedition of the entire Colorado River that was mostly spent kayaking, except for sections that were too depleted for their boats to navigate.

The Colorado College report recommends five actions for the Colorado River Basin:

• Recognize the finite limits of the river’s supplies and pursue a “crash course” in conservation and water re-distribution that sustains current users while leaving water in the river.
• Modify and amend the “Law of the River” to build in cooperation and flexibility.
• Embrace and enshrine basin-wide “systems thinking” in the region’s management of water, land, flora and fauna, agriculture, and human settlements.
• Give “nature” a firm standing in law, administration, and use of water in the basin.
• Adopt a flexible and adaptive management approach on a decades-long basis to deal with past, present, and projected future variability of climate and hydrology.

National standards to limit greenhouse gas emissions from future power plants have been a long time coming as there is no uniform national limit on the amount of carbon pollution that either new or existing facilities can currently emit. Five years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act, and in 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency determined that carbon pollution threatens Americans’ health and welfare.

U.S. Sen. Mark Udall (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“Moving our country toward a clean energy future will help stabilize energy prices, create new jobs, diversify the energy sources on which we depend, and make our country more secure,” Udall said. “It is crucial that we begin to reduce our dependence on the dirty fuels of the last century and curb the effects of climate change. The benefits of clean air are numerous and profound to Colorado’s public health and economy. While I would prefer to see a legislative solution that includes a comprehensive energy policy for America and focuses on clean, domestic sources of energy, the proposed standard can serve as an important backstop to congressional inaction and put a price on carbon pollution.”

The issuance of draft rules for carbon emissions didn’t come with quite the same fanfare as the December announcement of the EPA’s final rules to control power plant mercury emissions.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson called the carbon limit “a common-sense step to reduce pollution in our air, protect the planet for our children, and move us into a new era of American energy.”

Power plants are reportedly responsible for 40 percent of the nation’s output of carbon dioxide.

The proposed carbon standards, however, would not apply to existing power plants.

Industry groups such as the National Mining Association are already calling on Congress to spike the proposed rules, arguing they will lead to higher costs of living for Americans.

“EPA’s proposal for controlling greenhouse gas emissions from about half the nation’s electric power supply is a poorly disguised cap-and-tax scheme that represents energy and economic policy at its worst,” National Mining Association President and CEO Hal Quinn said in a prepared statement. “Higher utility bills and fewer jobs are the only certain outcomes from this reckless attempt to override Congress’s repeated refusal to enact punitive caps on carbon dioxide emissions.”

Colorado’s conservative congressmen — Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner, Doug Lamborn and Mike Coffman — have previously pledged to vote against any climate-change legislation.

The EPA claims new natural gas plants will be able to meet the new carbon standard without adding any additional technology. But new coal plants would need to install technology that captures carbon dioxide emissions and sequesters them into the ground rather than release them into the air.

Federal officials downplayed any negative impact a carbon standard would have on industry.

“Even without today’s action, the power plants that are currently projected to be built going forward would already comply with the standard,” the EPA said in a press release. “As a result, EPA does not project additional cost for industry to comply with this standard.”

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, sponsored the amendment, which failed 41-57. If approved, it would have also green-lighted construction of the controversial Keystone pipeline project.

A in-situ oil shale research project in Colorado. (USGS photo).

The senatorial smackdown comes after the House passed a similar bill in February, as part of Speaker Boehner’s much-maligned transportation package. U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, crafted the oil shale legislation, which runs counter to the Department of Interior’s plan to dramatically scale back available federal land for that type of energy exploration.

Oil shale is not the same as shale oil, which is oil trapped in rock formations. Oil shale doesn’t contain any oil at all and instead holds kerogen, or fossilized algae, that requires an extensive heating process for it to be extracted from the rock and refined into oil. Environmentalists strongly oppose oil shale as an energy source because of its dirty emissions and the vast amount of water it requires.

The Congressional Budget Office projected the oil shale bill would have no real positive effect on government revenue and over 10 years, it could leave the highway trust fund $78 billion in debt.

Days after the House passed the bill, Chevron announced it was divesting its oil shale research in Colorado to pursue more profitable projects. For now, U.S. oil shale is not commercially viable.

The Senate’s denial was the first time in four years it has voted on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling. As for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama has denied it for the time being but Republicans have been trying to push it through every chance they get. The pipeline would transport oil from Canada’s oil sands through the United States to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

National Wind Technology Center turbines near Golden. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, said the state stands “to suffer a huge economic blow if Congress can’t get its act together and extend this critical tax credit. With thousands of high-quality jobs at stake across our state and the entire country, we need to provide certainty for this industry, so we do not derail its current growth,” he said.

There are more than 5,000 wind industry jobs in Colorado, according to Interwest Energy Alliance, and the state 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 the tax credit expires at the end of the year, the state’s wind energy sector could crash.

“In fact, a crash is already beginning,” Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado, said in a prepared statement. “Vestas may lay off more than 80 percent of its workforce in Colorado if the PTC is not extended soon. I’m fighting every day for this extension, and we need to do it now. This isn’t something we can afford to put on the backburner until the last minute.”

All of Colorado’s congressional delegation except Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn say they want to extend 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 only to be resurrected later.