The idea was to convince the public that a new ranch he’d acquired would make a fine substitute for a stretch of federal land that slices through his 5,000-acre paradise, where he is building his own private frontier-themed town complete with a saloon, train station, firehouse and as many as 50 buildings.

But no one bothered to mention that the land Koch is offering, Buck Ranch, could soon be flanked by gas wells and pipelines — hardly the ambiance sought by hikers, mountain bikers and ATV users.

“There was absolutely no mention of gas wells. There was talk of how wonderful the trails would be and how they would put in a separate trail for the ATV users,” Paonia resident Hal Brill, who went on the tour, said in a recent telephone interview. “They were trying to extoll the beauties of that place. Nothing was said at all about the potential for industrial-scale development.”

Brad Goldstein, a spokesman for Koch and his coal company Oxbow Corp., said many properties in the area have mineral rights beneath the surface that the owner of the land does not control.

“We do not intend on taking any mineral rights in the land exchange. … We intend to preserve all of our rights to use the surface of those lands for recreational purposes,” he wrote in an email. “… Privately held conservation easements insure that if there is ever oil and gas exploration on Buck Ranch by another party, it cannot abrogate either the surface rights or the conservation rights.”

Olivia Bartlett, stewardship director at Black Canyon Land Trust, which would enforce the terms of the conservation easement on Buck Ranch should the land swap be approved, said in a phone interview there is nothing to prevent drilling from occurring on certain portions of Buck Ranch. She said the property includes both severed private and public mineral rights beneath its surface.

An aerial view of the western portion of Bear Ranch, which is entangled in a controversial land swap proposal. (Photo by Kathy Browning)

The land swap is much bigger than just Buck Ranch. There’s nearly another thousand acres in Dinosaur National Monument and in the Curecanti National Recreation Area that Koch is also throwing in the deal for what amounts to roughly 1,840 acres of federal land that bisects his remarkable retreat.

Koch bought the historic Colorado tourist town of Buckskin Joe two years ago and he has reassembled it at his Bear Ranch spread, a dozen miles upstream from his Oxbow coal mines. Koch — brother to billionaire oil barons Charles and David Koch — is an Old West fanatic known for his extraordinary collection of revolvers, wagons and other cowboy artifacts. He also owns homes in Aspen, Palm Beach, Fla., and Cape Cod, Mass., where he has been a vocal opponent of a proposed offshore wind farm.

Some residents on the Western Slope — Brill among them — believe John Salazar, a Democrat, lost the last 3rd Congressional District race to Scott Tipton, in part, due to the revelation that Koch, his wife and Oxbow donated a total of nearly $70,000 to the then-congressman’s political war chest around the time that Salazar introduced a bill for a stripped-down version of the Bear Ranch land swap. Smaller amounts of Koch-related money went to the campaigns of Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who co-sponsored the failed land exchange bill.

Whether a new bill will be introduced to get the land swap done this year is unclear. Commissioners in Gunnison and Delta counties have endorsed the deal. But opposition to the land exchange is fierce and Colorado’s congressmen may not want potentially bad publicity in an election year.

A spokesman for Udall on Thursday said the senator was not planning any related legislation “at this time.” A spokesman for Tipton did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Nonetheless, Koch — who has directed at least $2 million to a super PAC backing GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney — has mounted a publicity campaign to try to garner support for the land exchange. He is bankrolling robo-calls (mp3), color mailings and radio spots.

Critics of the swap have long contended the acreage Koch is offering the public is inferior to what he would be getting. Now there is the prospect of noisy compressors, air pollution, hazardous materials and traffic within earshot of the trails they’ve been offered. The master development plan submitted by Texas-based SG Interests that is under consideration by the Bureau of Land Management shows four wells perched immediately on the west boundary of Buck Ranch (pdf), and a pipeline that would run up the steep strip of land where there is an existing ATV trail.

Securing permits for the pipeline could be “extremely difficult” and its construction would be “very costly,” according to Goldstein. “In this market of extremely low [natural] gas prices, such a project would be very uneconomical,” he wrote. “Our opponents are grasping at straws that do not exist.”

Opponents, however, remain convinced that the offer of recreational trail easements on Buck Ranch is compromised by the nearby natural gas drilling that is proposed in the BLM’s preferred alternative.

“The economic argument provides little comfort,” Brill said. “Economics of gas drilling will change. It is likely that the current low prices for gas are not going to last forever. Demand will rise as coal power plants and vehicle fleets convert to gas and liquefied natural gas exports ramp up.”

“Now, the president tries to take credit for the fact that oil production is up,” said Romney, dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks. “I like to take credit for the fact that when I was governor the Red Sox won the World Series. [Laughter from the audience.] But neither one of those would be the case.”

Obama has made domestic energy production a priority of his administration. He has repeatedly called for an all-of-the-above strategy that capitalizes on above-ground resources like wind and solar as well as those beneath the ground like oil and gas. Oil production is at an eight-year high and oil and gas drilling is at its highest level since President Reagan was in office. Just yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved plans to develop 3,675 natural gas wells in Utah.

Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters after his speech Wednesday morning at a drilling site in Ft. Lupton, Colorado. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

But Romney credits loosened regulations under President Bush for the surge in U.S. energy production.

The former Massachusetts governor held his first Colorado campaign event since February at a K.P. Kauffman Co. oil field, which records show failed its last state inspection in July 2011. The woman who answered the phone at K.P. Kauffman’s field office in Ft. Lupton said she was unaware of any of the company’s multiple oil spills or what’s been done to remedy them.

Romney sided with Colorado’s industry groups, saying he believes hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, should be regulated at the state level instead of the federal level, as the Obama administration recently proposed. The boom in drilling in the United States has raised concerns about its impacts on public health and the environment. Local, state and federal officials are scrambling to react. But industry groups and Gov. John Hickenlooper are pressuring local and federal officials to butt out.

Even though Colorado has one of the nation’s strongest regulations for fracking, the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission only assessed five fines for the 516 spills last year. Watchdog groups say it is no wonder the industry and pro-oil politicians favor state oversight.

As he arrived in Colorado, Romney was taking a beating on the morning talk shows for again trying to take credit for saving the U.S. automobile industry. He was even taking it on the chin from fellow conservatives like Joe Scarborough who said he couldn’t take Romney seriously considering the candidate infamously wrote a New York Times Op-Ed titled: “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”

“If this guy was any oilier, he’d be lobbying to drill himself,” comedian Bill Maher tweeted.

Romney’s comment raises questions about his “character and makes it clear that he is a politician that will say or do anything just to get elected,” Colorado Democratic Party Chair Rick Palacio said.

The crowd at Ft. Lupton was much nicer. More than 400 supporters showed up to listen to Romney, many of them staying afterwards for a chance to shake his hand, get autographs and shoot photos.

Obama’s policies “are rooted in perspectives of the past,” Romney told them. “His ideas about energy are simply out of date. His other policies flow from the thinking of liberals from years ago. Their view was, if there was a problem in the economy, the government ought to take it over and run it.”

Small groups of demonstrators lined the rural road where Romney’s motorcade arrived and departed. They waved signs that read: “Romney, In The Tank For Oil,” “No Fracking, Not Here, Not Now, Not Ever,” “Natural Gas – Bridge Fuel to Nowhere” and “Tell Romney, End Subsidies to Big Oil.”

Dressed as the Grim Reaper, a protestor holds a sign mocking Mitt Romney and the presidential hopeful's remark that 'corporations are people.' (Photo by Troy Hooper)

Many of them tried to gain access to Romney’s speech but were denied by a phalanx of law enforcement and Secret Service agents who said it was a private event closed to the public. That message countered what Weld County Sheriff John Cooke told The Colorado Independent. The sheriff said that the event was originally supposed to be private but that at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday he received notice from the Romney campaign that they were inviting members of the public to attend. The Secret Service agent in charge said that she was told that members of the public had to be invited by the Romney staff.

Public Campaign, a nonprofit watchdog in Washington, D.C., noted that 30 percent of the $378,927 that Tipton, R-Colorado, reported raising in the first quarter of 2012 came from corporate political action committees (PACs) and party committees. Less than 14 percent of money the congressman raised in the first quarter came in donations of $200 or less, Public Campaign reported.

Oil and gas industry PACs handed over thousands in contributions, including checks from Chevron ($3,000), Koch Industries ($2,000), BP ($1,000), and Valero ($1,000). Tipton also received mining industry money from the PACs of Arch Coal ($2,000), Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold ($2,000) and Oxbow Carbon ($1,000) owned by Bill Koch, who is slightly less infamous than his brothers Charles and David who run Koch Industries. The Kochs also funded Tipton’s previous campaign.

Scott Tipton (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“Scott Tipton hauled in money from Big Oil, the mining industry, and lots of special interests. He raised more money each week, on average, than many Coloradan families make in a year,” said David Donnelly, national campaigns director at Public Campaign, noting Tipton averaged $31,600 in fundraising a week.

“If he’s spending time courting Big Oil, who’s looking out for his constituents?” Donnelly asked.

Messages left for Tipton’s spokesman were not returned.

Ever since replacing former Rep. John Salazar, Tipton has aggressively pursued oil and gas drilling and worked to weaken regulations that protect the public’s health and environment.

His zeal for industry is award-winning: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing outfit representing more than 3 million businesses that is often criticized for a perceived pro-pollution agenda, recently presented him with the Spirit of Enterprise Award for his pro-growth policies.

After accepting the award, Tipton went back to the capitol acting as if he wanted to win another one.

Just last week, the congressman unveiled a series of bills to expand oil and natural gas production, including one, HR 4381, that would require Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to conduct new lease sales in areas identified with the greatest energy potential and remove regulatory “delays and hurdles.”

The congressman crowed about HR 4381, which he is sponsoring, in a prepared statement, saying it would ensure “the nation’s energy needs are met … with a true all-of-the-above approach that will lower the cost of energy, jumpstart economic recovery, and get Americans working.”

The bill would mandate the Interior Department develop a new energy development plan every four years but it “sets the table against renewable energy from consideration” and it “ignores market forces by requiring arbitrary ‘necessary actions’ to facilitate energy development on the public lands,” according to Matt Garrington, the Colorado-based co-director of The Checks and Balances Project.

“It’s painful to watch members of Congress so blatantly pander for oil and gas lobby dollars,” he said.

Tipton is fighting for his political life in the sprawling 3rd Congressional District as he faces State House Minority Leader Sal Pace, a thirty-something Democrat trying to make the leap from state to federal policy-making. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named Pace among 18 candidates best positioned to convert seats in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives from red to blue in November. The contest will be watched across the nation.

Anti-fracking demonstrators in Boulder this week. (Photo by Troy Hooper)

“The Task Force discussed jurisdictional issues regarding substantive regulations but determined that drawing bright lines between state and local jurisdictional authority was neither realistic nor productive,” the task force wrote in the report’s cover letter.

There is still much work to be done. The task force report didn’t address key issues such as whether the minimum distance between drilling and residences and schools should be expanded.

A number of communities are drafting new land-use regulations to better mitigate the impacts of energy exploration but Colorado Attorney General John Suthers and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission sent letters to them warning that local laws could conflict with state laws.

State rules currently call for drilling setbacks of 150 feet in rural areas and 350 feet in urban areas.

Michael Freeman, an attorney for Earth Justice, said state officials were supposed to begin discussing improved setbacks in 2009. He said he was pleased there is a hearing today on the setback issue, which isn’t likely to be resolved soon. Another overdue issue, he added, is how drillers clean up after themselves. Colorado has a ways to go to increase public confidence in the state’s ability to regulate oil and gas. A recent report called the state’s regulatory system “inadequate” and soft on polluters.

“There are still a lot of issues that have to be dealt with to make sure public health is protected,” Freeman said.

The Colorado Environmental Coalition’s Charlie Montgomery called the task force’s report “really constructive.” He said continued attention to industrial pressures put on residential areas, such as Battlement Mesa on the Western Slope and Erie and Longmont on the Front Range, is critical.

COGCC, which its critics contend is too cozy with industry, is charged with both promoting the extraction business and with protecting against its negative impacts on health and environment.

“We just have to figure out what we can do to try to really do the best job protecting schools, neighborhoods, houses when drilling and fracking is coming in really close to where people live,” Montgomery said.

Hydraulic fracturing — aka “fracking” in which water, sand and chemicals are flushed into holes drilled into the earth to break up shale rock and release oil and gas deposits — has ushered in a new era of domestic energy exploration as well as concerns about its impacts on public health and the environment. There have been concerns fracking can contaminate groundwater, and it releases methane — a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide — into the atmosphere.

Studies show the injection of fracking wastewater into disposal wells can also trigger earthquakes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the first national standards to curb fracking’s air pollutants Wednesday. The rules will, beginning in 2015, require all oil and gas companies to capture smog-forming volatile organic compounds that are emitted during the final stages of well construction. The national standards are similar to regulations Colorado and Wyoming already have in place. In other states, those gases are currently released into the atmosphere or burned in a flaring process.

“The EPA’s new standards to reduce air pollution utilize existing technology and are a responsible step towards enforcing the Clean Air Act and protecting the air we breathe,” U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, said in prepared statement. “I look forward to working with the administration, my congressional colleagues and other stakeholders on other initiatives – like my FRAC Act – to improve the safety and efficacy of natural gas extraction and development.”

Colorado’s oil-and-gas task force convened on March 9 and met once per week through April. Officials said they received 1,600 public comments. Here are the task force’s recommendations:

· Encouraging local governments to designate a Local Government Designee (LGD) and to participate in the COGCC’s LGD program. Encourage LGDs to communicate industry proposals and issues with local elected officials and the public as soon as possible. However, if there is no LGD, then the municipal or county clerk may be the contact for a local jurisdiction. Providing strong encouragement to oil and gas operators to engage local government officials and the public as early in the COGCC permitting process as possible to solicit input. Initial outreach to the LGDs should occur before the application for permit to drill is filed with the COGCC. Issues to be addressed will vary site-by-site.

· Informing LGDs of opportunity to request additional 10 days to review permits and to request assistance from Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE). COGCC shall inform LGDs if formal consultation with CDPHE or CPW is to occur on a drilling permit application.

· Taking actions to ensure that the two new LGD liaisons at COGCC will be effective in working with local governments, oil and gas operators, and the public.

· Providing for a mutual understanding of oil and gas industry and local government practices by facilitating distribution of accurate information. Local governments, oil and gas operators, and COGCC should collaborate to, for example, identify the potential development impacts, duration of drilling operations, and proposed mitigation to protect public health, safety, welfare and the environment.

· Formalizing and promote opportunities for technical training of LGDs and other training/briefings for the general public. This should include annual training for new LGDs and periodic work sessions for LGDs or local government entities, based on need.

· Providing general education presentations in community forums, covering the entire state periodically.

· Local governments and operators should consider using an Memorandum of Understanding and/or Intergovernmental Agreement, as appropriate, to address issues of local concern (e.g. standard conditions of approval, public outreach, etc.).

· Promoting opportunity for COGCC staff to obtain information regarding local government process and requirements, as appropriate. Local governments are encouraged to notify COGCC early in the process of developing local regulations.

Representatives from nearly 50 ranches, farm restaurants, farm markets, and food producers sent a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking that he direct the Bureau of Land Management to withdraw all 22 of the proposed lease parcels scheduled to go up for an oil and gas auction in August.

The North Fork Valley.

The parcels in question cover about 30,000 acres, mostly on BLM lands near Crawford, Hotchkiss, Paonia, Somerset and the Paonia Reservoir State Park. Only about 900 acres are privately owned. The North Fork Valley — named after a Gunnison River tributary — is home to one of the highest concentrations of organic farms in Colorado and one of just two designated wine regions in the state.

The mere prospect of oil and gas development in the valley is already scaring off home buyers. Real estate brokers report they are losing sales contracts and are putting others on hold as potential home buyers wait to see whether the BLM approves any or all of the 22 proposed leases.

A group of young Coloradans garnered exposure at last month’s Winter X Games in Aspen while protesting drilling in the North Fork Valley and other parts of the high country where companies hold leases. Other protestors have picketed BLM offices in Montrose and elsewhere on the Western Slope. Another group is asking the BLM to place a moratorium on leasing in the North Fork Valley. Hundreds of residents have showed up at four recent public meetings organized by citizen groups.

Oil and gas drilling is causing consternation across Colorado.

Citizens met in Commerce City on Thursday to discuss the potential for hydraulic fracturing in their neighborhoods. There are 20 wells planned in the area and some estimates predict Adams County could have as many as 3,000 wells in the coming years as the state’s drilling industry booms.

Last week, Boulder County commissioners voted unanimously to impose a six-month moratorium on the acceptance of applications from energy companies requesting to drill within their borders.

A new study from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and University of Colorado at Boulder researchers estimates local natural gas producers are losing about 4 percent of their gas to the atmosphere — a finding that could essentially offset the environmental edge that natural gas is purported to enjoy over other fossil fuels, the journal Nature reported this week. The research escalated when methane — which traps more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide — was detected in air samples taken from a monitoring tower north of Denver. The scientists traced it to the Denver-Julesburg Basin where more than 20,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled.

Natural gas, meanwhile, was the resource of emphasis in the energy plan President Obama laid out in his State of the Union address. Claiming the nation has an almost 100-year supply of natural gas that could create more than 600,000 jobs, he said his administration “will take every possible action to safely develop” it. The president called for mandatory disclosures of hydraulic fracturing chemicals. Democrats praised Obama’s speech, many of them supporting his call to drill for more natural gas. Republicans argued the plan doesn’t go far enough. They cried for the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Here in Colorado, U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis are behind pleas to President Obama to strengthen environmental and health standards to protect against hydraulic fracturing risks.

Trepidation about the impacts of “fracking,” as the practice is known, has intensified as horror stories like those being told in Pavillion, Wyo., blame air and water contamination on natural gas drilling. The Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft report linking fracking with water contamination there.

Colorado Democrats introduced a bill in the State Legislature that would have required hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells to be set back at least 1,000 feet from any school or residence. But on Monday a legislative committee defeated the setback bill along with a bill that would have required closed-loop tank systems in place of open fluid pits. The Colorado Oil and Gas Association and the Colorado Petroleum Association and the Colorado Association of Commerce and Industry opposed the legislation. Republican committee members said the bills would have been “job killers.”

“I’m not going to go out and say the sky is falling and that climate change is happening, but I’m very concerned about the risk of climate change,” Gov. John Hickenlooper told a coalition of 22 southeastern Colorado counties at a public meeting last week, as reported by the Pueblo Chieftain.

The governor’s comments echo some of the same language he used at the Colorado Environmental Coalition’s “Rebel With A Cause” gala in May 2009, except then his views were a lot more clear.

“I’m not saying that the sky is falling. I’m saying that clearly the climate is changing, clearly mankind’s activities are causing it,” Hickenlooper said back then.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper in Yuma.

Now, Hickenlooper clarifies that he is concerned about the risk of climate change but he deliberately stops short of acknowledging climate change is actually happening.

Even before he ascended to the governor’s office, there were questions as to whether Hickenlooper wears flip flops to the planet’s climate change debates.

In February 2010, at the National Western Mining Conference & Exhibition in Denver, Hickenlooper raised eyebrows when he said, “I don’t think that the scientific community has decided with certainty that climate change is as catastrophic as so many people think.”

It was a surprising remark that caught many people off guard, including Beth Conover, the author of “How the West Was Warmed.” Conover tweeted: “What the … ?” Hickenlooper wrote the forward for her 2009 book in which he called climate change “one of the greatest challenges of our time.”

Whether the governor now doubts how much the West has warmed is unclear. But rising sea levels, warmer temperatures and below-average snowpack are unmistakable to most scientists. And while he no longer comes out and says it is happening, Hickenlooper is preparing for climate change.

In an effort to conserve water, Colorado’s governor said Americans need to get rid of nonnative Kentucky bluegrass from their yards and that industry needs to develop more water-efficient toilet flushing. As mayor of Denver, he swapped out energy-guzzling bulbs in traffic lights with more efficient ones. He introduced biodiesel into city fleets, successfully lobbied for mass transportation solutions, implemented an ambitious recycling program at Denver International Airport and praised urban infill. In his speech last week in Pueblo, Hickenlooper reportedly mentioned he has been in discussions with the CEO of Kum & Go about possibly facilitating a low-interest government loan so that the convenience stores could offer compressed natural gas as an alternative to gasoline.

When it comes to climate change, Hickenlooper may walk the walk. But he no longer talks the talk.

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In a letter to the president, the two Colorado Democrats, along with Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y, ask Obama to support the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act, which would require the disclosure of chemicals used in the natural gas extraction process called “fracking.”

In his State of the Union speech last month, Obama emphasized natural gas as a key resource in his “all-of-the-above” strategy to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil and to make the United States a global leader in clean energy. Obama followed it up with speeches at Buckley Air Force Base and another in Nevada in which he called the United States “the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.”

Rep. Diana DeGette

“With hydraulic fracturing expanding across the country, it is more important than ever we ensure the economic benefits of natural gas do not come at the expense of the health and safety of our families,” DeGette said Thursday.

DeGette, Hinchey, and Polis also requested an expansion of an ongoing Environmental Protection Agency study of hydraulic fracturing, which received a congressional hearing Wednesday so charged Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Josh Fox of “Gasland” ended up in handcuffs.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently embarking on the first, independent and comprehensive study of the risks that hydraulic fracturing poses to drinking water,” their letter states. “Unfortunately, media reports indicate that some in the oil and gas industry are seeking to narrow and even undermine this important study. This must not be allowed to happen. We urge you to maintain a strong commitment to the research that is under way by providing the necessary resources and support. We also urge you to consider expanding this research to cover hydraulic fracturing’s impact on air quality and human health.”

The House members also questioned the shale gas statistics cited in the State of the Union address.

Rep. Jared Polis

“We also believe it’s critical to have an accurate understanding of exactly how much shale gas lies beneath the surface,” their letter states. “Much has been said about our country’s potential supply of shale gas. Some in the industry have claimed we have an ocean of natural gas buried beneath our surface. Despite these claims, independent estimates about shale gas reserves reveal great uncertainty. In fact, just this week, the Energy Information Administration slashed its estimate of technically recoverable resources of U.S. shale gas by half. Furthermore, the United States Geological Survey’s estimates released last year are even lower. This is an enormous swing and it should be a caution to those who claim these new shale gas fields are the silver bullet to our country’s energy challenge. We must take care to ensure that any ‘bridge fuel,’ doesn’t instead prove to be a bridge to nowhere.”

On Tuesday, in the lead up to a hearing on a controversial federal study of water contamination from natural gas drilling, residents in the Pavillion, Wyo., area voiced unwavering support for the EPA.

“The Pavillion area was heavily drilled for natural gas,” said John Fenton, an alfalfa farmer. “No consideration was given to well spacing or to the impacts on the people or the environment. Our land and the land of our neighbors has been damaged and devalued. The water has been contaminated and the air fouled. Our health has also been attacked, my wife is losing her sense of smell and her sense of taste, my youngest son has developed seizures and I suffer chronic headaches and fatigue.”

Fenton was one of three landowners from the Pavillion area to speak to the press in a teleconference the day before the hearing over the EPA’s draft report, which has been criticized by gas industry executives, Wyoming officials and some members of Congress.

At the hearing, GOP lawmakers questioned the integrity of the EPA’s draft report, alleging it “jumps to conclusions” in making connections between fracking and water contamination. EPA officials clarified the scope of the draft report and explained the uniqueness of the Pavillion gas field.

“We make clear that the causal link to hydraulic fracturing has not been demonstrated conclusively, and that our analysis is limited to the particular geologic conditions in the Pavillion gas field and should be assumed to apply to fracturing in other geologic settings,” James B. Martin, EPA’s Region 8 administrator in Denver, testified. “It should be noted that fracturing in Pavillion is taking place in and below the drinking water aquifer and in close proximity to drinking water wells — production conditions different from those in many other areas of the country.”

The EPA on Tuesday issued more than 600 new pages of data to support its draft report.

Fenton praised the EPA for paying attention.

Louis Meeks’ well water contains methane gas, hydrocarbons, lead and copper, according to the EPA’s test results. When he drilled a new water well, it also showed contaminants. (Photo by Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

“When the people of the Pavillion area began to notice negative impacts to their water they looked to the state and industry to provide answers and help to remedy the contamination,” he said. “However there was no help from the state of Wyoming or the natural gas industry. The people of the Pavillion area were told that there was no way the natural gas drilling and fracking operations in the Pavillion area could have caused damage to the water. When industry did admit that problems existed they blamed the impact on the landowners saying that they lacked proper hygiene or that they had contaminated the wells themselves.”

“During the entire time we’ve known our water is bad, we contacted our elected officials, the Wyoming Governor, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, and the BLM, who administer the Tribe’s minerals under our property, asking for help. They continually said our water was fine,” added landowner Louis Meeks. “While reading the EIS for the Wind River Gas Field Development Project, I saw Region 8 EPA Greg Oberley’s name and called him to ask for EPA’s help. Several of our impacted neighbors also contacted the EPA. After site tours of the Pavillion area, we were invited to go to Denver to explain the problems we were having with our water. We welcome and are thankful for the help that the EPA has given us.”

The EPA is extending the public comment period on its study into March and it also sent out a request for peer review. Martin and other officials stressed that the study is not final.

In the meantime, natural gas prices are plunging due to a surge in supply. Several oil and gas companies recently announced plans to close off natural gas wells, pull out rigs and slow spending.

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Rep. Scott Tipton

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, on the other hand, issued a statement after the State of the Union address to say he was “encouraged to hear the President talk so much about clean energy, as Colorado is leading the nation when it comes to renewable energy research and development. Many of the new jobs the President talked for this industry will be created in Colorado – and we are ready.”

Despite his stance on the Keystone XL oil pipeline, Obama touted the millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration that have been approved under his tenure and directed his administration “to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources.” American oil production is the highest it’s been in eight years. “That’s right — eight years,” he said to applause in the chamber.

But noting that the United States has only 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves, Obama pledged to end subsidies for oil companies and instead “double-down” on “an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.”

In last year’s State of the Union speech, the president also emphasized domestic energy production but never climate change. This year, he briefly acknowledged the problem.

“We can also spur energy innovation with new incentives. The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well, tonight, I will. I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes,” said Obama, adding the Department of Defense will also purchase enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

“Clean energy,” however, means different things to different people. In the past, the White House has used the term to include nuclear power, natural gas development and other controversial fuels.

Obama paid special attention to natural gas, noting that America has an almost 100-year supply and that his administration “will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.” He estimated natural gas could create more than 600,000 jobs in the next decade.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colorado, applauded what she heard in the State of the Union.

Rep. Diana DeGette

The president’s pleas for Congress to rise above partisanship were heard loud and clear by U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, who, after the State of the Union, remarked “… One place we can find common ground is on the responsible development of clean-burning natural gas, which Colorado has in abundance, as part of a transition toward clean energy and away from overseas oil.”

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colorado, also issued words of encouragement for Obama’s speech.

“President Obama tonight outlined not only a blueprint for an economy built to last but an action agenda that reflects what Coloradans have been telling Congress to address for months: create jobs and strengthen the economy; reform education for our children and economic future; make college more affordable; invest in clean renewable energy to make us energy independent; and ensure that all Americans have a chance to work hard and succeed,” Polis said. “These are all practical, common sense solutions to our most pressing challenges that Congress should embrace, and I look forward to working with Democrats and Republicans this year to make progress for Colorado and America.”

Natural gas may be a cleaner-burning energy source than coal, but making the switch isn’t likely to slow global warming any time soon, according to a new study in the journal Climatic Change.

Reducing coal use may cut down on carbon dioxide, but its affect on the earth’s warming trend isn’t quite so simple, according to Tom Wigley, a senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Among other considerations, methane leaks from gas production and in transmission lines could negate the climate benefit until well into the 22nd Century:

When gas replaces coal there is additional warming out to 2,050 with an assumed leakage rate of 0%, and out to 2,140 if the leakage rate is as high as 10%. The overall effects on global-mean temperature over the 21st century, however, are small.

Just how much methane currently leaks during transmission — or would leak during a massive push to burn more gas — is still an open question. So is methane’s affect on climate change compared to carbon dioxide — a Cornell University study released earlier this year suggested methane was far worse for the climate than old estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protestion Agency had suggested. The American Petroleum Institute, among other industry groups, was highly critical of that method.

In the new study, Wigley uses a more conservative model for methane’s impact on climate change than the Cornell researchers. But the switch from coal to gas — dropping our coal use by 50 percent by 2050, he suggests — would come with a couple of planet-warming chemical side-effects.

For one, somewhat paradoxically, the sulfur dioxide released from burning coal has a cooling effect that’d be lost in a switch to natural gas.

Just how much methane escapes into the atmosphere before being burned is another, less certain, variable, Wigley writes. “Unless leakage rates for new methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change,” he writes in his conclusion. (You can read the study here.)

A study commissioned by the City of Fort Worth suggested improvements in pipe connections to limit methane leakage have been targeted as the prime targets for improving the natural gas industry’s affect on air quality.

As the Los Angeles Times reports today, Wigler considered a range of methane leak rates. Even in a perfect scenario, he found, the switch from coal wouldn’t do much to slow climate change for decades:

Even assuming there is no leakage — unlikely, most would agree — the switch analyzed by Wigley would still add to Earth’s overall average temperature through about 2050. After that, temperatures would fall, but only by a few tenths of a degree Fahrenheit. If a substantial amount of methane leaks, the warming trend will last until 2140, he found.

Bear in mind, the most widely reviewed studies predict a global average temperature rise of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 under current fossil-fuel consumption rates.

“Relying more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the climate problem,” said Wigley, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia. “It would be many decades before it would slow down global warming at all, and even then it would just be making a difference around the edges.”

A group of doctors and scientists from 24 different universities and non-profit research organizations – including Colorado School of Mines and the University of Colorado – recently sent a letter (pdf) to Energy Secretary Steven Chu blasting his picks for a Department of Energy panel studying the controversial natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing.

The group wrote that the panel is tilted too much to oil and gas interests and that “reducing individual biases” would lead to a more balanced report without “advocacy-based science” that “seems to have already concluded that hydraulic fracturing is safe.”

However, the panel did release its report today (pdf), making several recommendations for improving safety and addressing environmental concerns about the process in which water, sand and frequently undisclosed chemicals are injected under high pressure deep into natural gas wells to fracture tight rock formations and free up more gas.

The panel, dubbed the Shale Gas Subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, stopped short of actually making regulatory recommendations but did call for greater transparency and disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

That has been a key legislative goal of U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, both Colorado Democrats, and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper last week announced his intention to push for a new fracking rule at the state level that would compel disclosure of chemicals.

The letter to Chu was signed by researchers with Paonia, Colo.-based TEDX, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, as well as the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado, which recently conducted a Health Impact Assessment on natural gas drilling in Garfield County.

“We urge you to modify the panel’s membership so that the panel can make recommendations on hydraulic fracturing that are unbiased and scientifically sound,” the group wrote. “In our work, we believe in reducing individual biases in evaluating the merits of scientific or technological ideas. The current panel does not meet this standard. Six of the seven members have current financial ties to the natural gas and oil industry.”