Even as domestic drilling for natural gas has dropped off dramatically due to the recession, more and more states and local governments are looking to up taxes on the industry in order to bolster desperately depleted budgets.
It’s been nearly eight months since former Garfield County Judge Steve Carter says he was ambushed by oil and gas money in his unsuccessful bid for county commissioner, but the Democrat is clearly still seething about what he considers a “stolen election.”
A mineral royalty rights meeting that turned ugly in Grand Junction earlier this month is just a small taste of what’s coming for local and state Democrats running for re-election in 2010 on Colorado’s Western Slope, according to one lawmaker.
Most experts agree, the factors shaping the 2010 election on Colorado’s Western Slope – and to a lesser degree the rest of the state – boil down to a version of that old James Carville chestnut: “It’s the energy economy, stupid.”
The question is no longer whether Scott McInnis would have beaten Mark Udall in last year’s U.S. Senate race – a suggestion he made to the Colorado Independent that touched off a minor firestorm last fall – but just how he’ll fare getting the GOP nod to take on Gov. Bill Ritter next year.
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