A bill designed to encourage oil shale development cruised through the House on Thursday evening. But a wind production tax credit didn’t fly, and now layoffs and abandoned projects loom.
President Obama’s call to increase domestic energy production Tuesday received a rosy reception from Colorado’s lefty lawmakers but was all but ignored by its conservative congressional delegation who are still smarting from the commander-in-chief’s recent blocking of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
President Barack Obama today agreed with a U.S. State Department recommendation not to fast track the controversial Keystone XL pipeline that would move tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas. That decision predictably drew mixed reviews from Colorado’s congressional delegation and praise from the state’s conservation community.
Tough new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules limiting mercury, lead and other toxic emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants were met with widespread praise from previously demoralized environmental groups on Wednesday.
Republican Colorado congressional members joined their House colleagues today in blaming the Senate for failing to pass a long-term extension of unemployment benefits and a payroll tax break, but senior Denver Democrat Diana DeGette scoffed at that notion on Tuesday.
Colorado and national environmental groups today were sharply critical of congressional plans to accelerate a White House decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline as part of a deal to extend payroll tax relief and unemployment benefits.
Tisha Casida is a 29-year-old southern Colorado-bred conservative. The Keystone XL Pipeline, she suggests, is safer and probably better for the environment than sending oil tankers across the Atlantic. The country’s conflict over carbon dioxide, she hints, may be as much a waste of time as the war on drugs. She makes no bones that she is disappointed in her congressman, Scott Tipton, because he hasn’t demonstrated leadership on a few crucial issues, like speaking out against the Patriot Act.
Conservationists are pointing to oily muck likely oozing from a Suncor Energy oil refinery in Commerce City toward the South Platte River as an example of what can go very wrong in the looming oil and gas boom along Colorado’s Front Range.
U.S. State Department officials on Wednesday clarified that the Obama administration is only looking at alternative routes for the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline within Nebraska, somewhat easing the fears of Colorado water watchdogs worried about a “Western Alternative” that might reroute the project through the state.
Even before tonight’s jobs speech, conservation groups in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West say it’s clear President Barack Obama has chosen polluting industry jobs over other employment sectors, demoralizing the environmental base ahead of the 2012 campaign.
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