Speaking at an energy summit hosted by the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Santorum said that the Obama administration was leading “a war on fossil fuels” and he vowed, if he were elected, to open up more public lands to drilling.

Gingrich went further. “This is the most anti-American energy administration we have ever had,” he said, blaming Obama for high gas prices and calling the administration’s “all-of-the-above” energy plan “very dangerous and very destructive.”

Outside conservative politics circles, however, on the ground in the burgeoning gas fields above Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale formation, for example, or on the plains covering the Niobrara formation in northern Colorado and Wyoming, where big-rig oil-and-gas traffic streams over two-lane roadways, the Obama years look more like the era described recently by Bloomberg News and quoted this past Sunday by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

“The U.S. is the closest it has been in almost 20 years to achieving energy self-sufficiency… Domestic oil output is the highest in eight years. The U.S. is producing so much natural gas that, where the government warned four years ago of a critical need to boost imports, it now may approve an export terminal… The U.S. has reversed a two-decade-long decline in energy independence, increasing the proportion of demand met from domestic sources over the last six years to an estimated 81 percent through the first 10 months of 2011.”

Friedman was exploring the idea that the U.S. should adjust its trade policy to reckon with the fact that the country is producing so much energy, and using less oil as a percentage of fuel source, that it might soon land among the world’s top oil exporting nations. From that perspective, even high oil prices look like a good thing for the U.S. economy.

“This transformation could make the U.S. the world’s top energy producer by 2020,” Friedman wrote. “We could raise more [energy] tax revenue [as a result], freeing us from worrying about the Middle East, and, if we’re smart, [financing] a bridge to a much cleaner energy future.”

As the Colorado Independent has reported consistently for the last two years, oil and gas companies have leased land nationwide that they have yet to make productive and they hold thousands of unused drilling permits for sites all across the mountain west.

Likewise, in Colorado, stiffer state regulations on oil and gas production put in place by Democratic Governor Bill Ritter three years ago and attacked repeatedly by Republicans as “job killers” have not discouraged major new oil and gas drilling. Larimer and Weld Counties, for example, the counties sitting atop the Niobrara, have seen dozens of new oil and gas wells drilled in the past year or so and will see a great deal more drilled in years to come, no matter who sits in the White House or in the governor’s office.

[ Video: TCI's Troy Hooper. Image: Riding above the Niobrara shale formation. ]

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A deal to sell a controversial central Wyoming natural gas field has fallen apart amidst allegations that drilling there has caused water pollution.

Texas-based Legacy Resources backed out of a $45 million deal to buy the field near Pavillion, Wyo., from EnCana last week, soon after the Environmental Protection Agency said it had detected cancer-causing benzene at 50 times the level safe for humans and other carcinogenic pollutants during its latest round of sampling.

The cancelled sale could signal difficulty for companies trying to turn over aging gas fields if there are environmental or health concerns related to their operations.

“Although Encana retained responsibility for any outcome resulting from the ongoing groundwater investigation undertaken by EPA, due to the continued attention surrounding the investigation, and uncertainty regarding further development, Legacy is not prepared to go forward with the transaction,” said EnCana spokesman Doug Hock, in an email to ProPublica.

Legacy Resources did not respond to a call requesting comment.

Legacy Resources announced it had agreed to buy EnCana’s Pavillion-area wells, which produce an estimated 13 million cubic feet of gas a day, on Nov. 1. At the time, the company also said it planned to drill new wells in Pavillion to tap the 45 billion cubic feet of gas it believes lies underground.

But the prospects for future development have dimmed.

Residents had long complained of widespread water contamination and alleged that fracking was to blame. EnCana had trucked in replacement drinking water to some residents. The company faced increasing controversy when the EPA announced in late 2009 that it had found hydrocarbon contaminants in residents’ drinking water wells. The agency advised residents not to drink their water and to ventilate their homes when they showered or washed dishes. ProPublica began reporting on concerns about water contamination in Pavillion in 2008.

On Nov. 9 the EPA announced more test results from samples taken in Pavillion, this time from two water monitoring wells drilled to 1,000 feet – far below most drinking water wells in the area. It found benzene, along with acetone, toluene, naphthalene and traces of diesel fuel. It also detected a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) that is commonly used by the drilling industry to fracture wells. It also can be used for cleanup at well sites.

EnCana has maintained that the pollutants found in Pavillion-area wells occur naturally, and that drilling is not to blame. “Nothing EPA presented suggests anything has changed since August of last year – the science remains inconclusive in terms of data, impact, and source,” Hock wrote to ProPublica.

Hock said that the EPA’s monitoring wells were drilled into a zone known to contain methane gas, and suggested the pollutants would have been expected to be there. He said that the 2-BE was only detected in one sample and could have leached from the plastics used to drill many drinking water and monitoring wells. In previous statements to ProPublica, he has said that the 2-BE might have come from household cleaning agents, which can contain the chemical. Hock did not reply to questions about whether EnCana had used 2-BE in fracking or any other processes in Pavillion.

The EPA’s latest findings are consistent with previous samples taken from water wells at 42 homes in the area since 2008.

The agency has so far been careful not to draw conclusions about the cause of the pollution. EPA officials had said they planned to release a detailed report analyzing possible causes of the pollution by the end of November, but now say it will be at least a few more weeks.

“In my 15 years on this subcommittee, we have forged a strong bipartisan tradition of thorough and meaningful investigations. That could have been the case with the Solyndra investigation,” DeGette said today at a subcommittee meeting on oversight and investigations. “We have here a $525 million loan guarantee made with taxpayer funds that went bad. We need to learn the circumstances of the original deal as the restructuring. We need all the facts, all the witnesses, all the documents. Sadly, after seeing the Majority’s conduct of this investigation, I do not believe they share this goal.”

The subpoena authorization is an unprecedented move for the committee, DeGette noted, stressing that the Obama administration has already turned over 85,000 pages of documents related to Solyndra.

“I believe the majority’s action in moving forward with a subpoena resolution today is an act of irresponsible partisanship,” she said. “The Committee has every right to seek and obtain relevant information from the White House to advance its legitimate oversight needs. But a subpoena to the White House is a serious step in a congressional investigation. And it is a step that should be taken only after alternative avenues have been exhausted. We clearly do not face those circumstances today.”

Colorado’s congresswoman was among the first to seek an investigation into the Solyndra loan guarantee after the solar company in Fremont, Calif., flamed out in August. A grim macroeconomic climate, excess capacity, European subsidy cuts and competition from China all factored in its demise.

Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity — an anti-tax group partly founded and funded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch — is spending $2.4 million on television commercials in Florida, Michigan, New Mexico and Virginia attacking Obama over Solyndra and his ties to clean energy.

“Wealthy donors with ties to Solyndra give Obama hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the one-minute ads say. “What does Obama give them in return? Half a billion in taxpayer money to help his friends at Solyndra — a business the White House knew was on the path to bankruptcy, but loaned them the money anyway. … Now Solyndra is bankrupt and taxpayers are stuck with the bill.”

The ads end with an allegation the president is using taxpayer money for “political favors.”

The link between money and politics is indeed hard to ignore, especially when examining the actions of the Republican congressmen on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Koch Industries and its employees — who help operate Americans for Prosperity — contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the majority of the committee’s Republicans. Koch Industries is grounded in the oil and gas business and is the largest energy donor to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R- Colo., is the biggest beneficiary of the Kochs’ campaign contributions in Colorado, raking in upwards of $315,000 from Koch-funded organizations in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other sources.

Gardner, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, voted in favor of the White House subpoena. Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., who is leading the charge in the Solyndra investigation, received a maximum $5,000 contribution from Koch Industries in this election cycle.

DeGette said Upton’s rhetoric has become “inflammatory,” “brazenly inaccurate,” and proof that any objective review of the Solyndra situation has deteriorated into a conspicuous “political sideshow.”

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The deadline for this quarter’s House race campaign finance report is tomorrow, October 15, and Gardner filed his report today. Oil and gas corporate donors to his campaign include Conoco, Anadarko, Exxon, Spectra and Chevron corporations. Individuals with ties to Cordillera Energy Partners, Noble Energy, Ellora Energy, Duncan Oil, Bantek, among others, also donated cash in the thousands, many of them repeat donors. The list includes energy organizations such as the American Oil and Gas association and the National Petroleum Refiners Association, many of which also made second-time contributions to the Gardner campaign.

Through political committees or employees Tesoro Corporation, an oil refinery company, gave $2500; Spectra Energy, $3000; Ellora Energy, now owned by Exxon, $2500; Legacy Energy, a gas company, $2000; Bentek Energy, $7500.

Gardner’s opponent for 2012, Democratic state Senate President Brandon Shaffer, announced earlier this week that his campaign raised $180,000 for the quarter. He said the average individual contribution he received amounted to $153.78.

Gardner has championed oil and gas and mining interests on the stump and in Washington. He says cutting back environmental regulations on the energy industry is the best way to create jobs. He has voted to thin regulations, even longstanding laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act put into place in the 1970s during the administration of Republican Richard Nixon. Most notably, Gardner in June introduced the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011, which would open up for drilling pristine and largely unstudied Arctic Ocean regions off Alaska’s shores.

His record has led Fort Collins-based Clean Water Action to label him the most anti-environmental representative ever sent to Congress from Colorado.

In addition to the oil and gas money, Gardner received a series of donations from executives at Colorado Bank and Dish Network, founded by billionaire Charlie Ergen, a major political donor mostly on the right.

Dish Network execs gave Gardner $23,000. Colorado Bank execs gave him $9,000.

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With profits soaring for hard-rock mining and oil and gas companies doing business on public lands, U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., is leading the charge to get the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate whether American taxpayers are getting their fair share.

Udall, cousin of Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, sent a letter to GAO officials Thursday asking the agency to “undertake an examination of the value of minerals extracted and the amount of revenues collected in fiscal year 2010.” U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., also signed the letter.

“The U.S Department of the Interior manages approximately 700 million acres of subsurface federal minerals on public land and 1.7 billion acres on the Outer Continental Shelf,” the lawmakers wrote. “These minerals include hard-rock minerals — such as gold, silver and copper — that are available without having to pay a royalty.

“It is vitally important that the American taxpayer receives a fair return for the mineral resources extracted from federal land.”

The lawmakers want the GAO to prepare a report on the minerals being extracted under the 1872 Mining Law, which does not require royalties, and various other mineral leasing acts. Specifically, they want to know:

• The amount of minerals extracted from federal lands and the Outer Continental Shelf and the estimated dollar value of those minerals.

• How much the federal government collected for those minerals, including royalties, rents, and bonuses, and how that amount was determined.

Mark Udall, who has previously co-sponsored legislation to reform the 1872 Mining Law, also would like to see uranium mining regulated under the Mineral Leasing Act, which does require royalty payments for the extraction of oil, gas and coal from federal lands.

Gold prices have skyrocketed in recent years, with Newmont Mining of Denver – the second largest gold mining company in the world — seeing its profits double between 2008 and 2010. Environmentalists want such companies to pay royalties for mining on public lands.

“With record high metals prices and skyrocketing industry profits, it’s time for mining companies to pay their fair share,” said Lauren Pagel, policy director for Earthworks. “When it comes to our public lands, we need sound fiscal policies, not an outdated mining law that lets mining companies fleece taxpayers out of millions.”

Advocacy groups also hope the GAO report will help put an end to subsidies and tax breaks for oil and gas companies currently reaping billions in profits.

“Oil and gas companies are robbing American taxpayers blind,” said Matt Garrington, deputy director of the Checks & Balances Project. “ExxonMobil and BP are making billions and can pay a fair price for developing publicly owned oil and gas resources. The report requested by Rep. Grijalva and Sen. Udall is an important step to stopping the giveaway of our public lands to Big Oil.”

The American Petroleum Institute counters the industry is merely taking the same deductions and breaks available to other businesses, while seeking to offset the enormous up-front capital costs of oil and gas production.

“Contrary to what some in politics and the media have said, the oil and natural gas industry currently enjoys no unique tax credits or deductions,” API officials argue (pdf).

During a session about energy at the 2011 Sustainable Opportunities Summit in downtown Denver this week, a speaker said “the prospect of a hanging focuses the mind wonderfully.”

The hanging, in this case, is catastrophic climate change caused by burning fossil fuels, the major driver of change. Still, agnosticism prevailed as speakers from government, business and non-government organizations admitted to no single answer, either locally or globally.

“This state is unique because it has such high capacity for solar, for wind, natural gas, oil and geothermal—you can go on down the list of all the energy sources,” said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. “You truly have to be agnostic.”

That includes coal, he said, and he said it would be “foolish” not to continue exploring the feasibility of sequestering emissions of carbon dioxide.

“What is going to change is the composition, the matrix,” he said. “We need to make sure we are relentlessly aware of all the risks and benefits, costs and rewards, that come from each of these energy sources.”

Hickenlooper also extolled natural gas, despite admitted environmental risks in extraction, because of its lower costs, the cleaner air from burning it compared to coal, and the greater security it would provide if more of the transportation sector is adapted to use it. Noting the $500 to $600 billion spent each year to purchase oil from foreign dictatorships, Hickenlooper said; “That’s not sustainable.”

At an earlier session, Hickenlooper’s chief energy adviser. T.J. Deora, director of the Governor’s Energy Office, said that renewables are now producing nearly a third of Colorado’s electricity, with the rest coming from coal and natural gas.

Aging coal plants, being fully depreciated, deliver cheap electricity, but Deora suggested the decision time is coming as to their replacement. “It gives us about 10 years to figure out what happens next.” That time, he said, may allow us to know whether – as natural gas boosters insist – we truly do have a 100-year supply. Too, we need to continue to learn how to better integrate renewables.

Renewables aren’t fully competitive yet without subsidies, he admitted, but he noted that solar prices have dropped 40 percent in the last two years, and reported that some analysts believe solar will reach grid parity – costing no more than fossil fuels – by 2017 or 2018.

“The reality is that all forms of energy are subsidized. Some are subsidized through tax credits. Some are subsidized through their externalities,” he said, citing the pollutants of nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide and mercury, all of which are produced by burning coal and some of which are unleashed in the burning of natural gas. Modern methods can remove some or more of these pollutants.

If all subsidies – including environmental – were wiped out, the costs of wind and solar would be competitive with the newest coal-fired power plant in Colorado, Comanche 3, said Deora

That statement provoked a rebuke from Tisha Conoly Schuller, president and chief executive of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association. “It’s easy to sit in a conference room and say we should get rid of all subsidies for energy,” she said. The reality, she went on to argue, is far more complicated.

She admitted to “tradeoffs while we make our energy choices,” but called for a “thoughtful, reasonable, balanced and engaged conversation about energy.”

But Schuller did make the case for natural gas as both reliable and affordable. In the past, she noted, oil and gas prices rose and fell in tandem. But now, as oil prices rise, natural gas remains relatively inexpensive, thanks to several “shale plays” across the nation.

And finally, she noted a surging world population, now at 6 billion and headed to 9 billion by mid-century, with people across the world aspiring to a higher standard of living. Even now, 14 percent of Americans live at or below poverty levels, and 20 percent of their income goes to energy. Affordability will matter, she said.

Hickenlooper, speaking later, made a similar point. Energy availability is one of the most crucial ingredients for improving the quality of life in developing nations, he said. “That is progress. That is what everyone in this room wants,” he said. But in seeking to elevate the quality of life today, he added, the cost to future generations must be weighed.

James Newcomb, program director for the Rocky Mountain Institute, delivered a cheery note with a report of credible evidence that, with just a 25 to 30 percent cost premium, 80 percent of electrical generation can be delivered from renewable sources by 2050. That indicates technology is not the hurdle.

The oil and gas industry’s largest trade group will begin direct contributions to political candidates as it ramps up for a fight over the Obama administration’s proposal to cut billions in tax breaks for energy companies.

“This is adding one more tool to our toolkit,” Martin Durbin, API’s executive vice president for government affairs, told Bloomberg in an interview. “At the end of the day, our mission is trying to influence the policy debate.”

Energy company giving has been heavily weighted toward Republicans.

Oil and gas companies and groups with political committees, such as the Washington-based Independent Petroleum Association of America, gave about 77 percent, or $19.6 million, of their total contributions for 2009-2010 to the Republican party, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Oil and gas companies were the 15th largest source of political contributions leading up to the 2010 election.

Koch Industries Inc. was the industry’s largest contributor, giving $1.79 million to candidates, more than 90 percent of whom were Republicans. Exxon, which gave $1.33 million to congressional campaigns, was the second largest. More than 80 percent of Exxon’s money went to Republicans.

Pat Garafalo at Climate Progress writes that API’s move toward direct political contributions is especially troublesome because in addition to lobbying for the industry, it runs committees that set standards for the oil industry.

In its official report, the commission that investigated the BP oil spill found that API was too “compromised” to be setting industry standards. “Because they would make oil and gas industry operations potentially more costly, API regularly resists agency rulemakings that government regulators believe would make those operations safer, and API favors rulemaking that promotes industry autonomy from government oversight,” the commission found.

A phone survey of 2,200 registered voters in five Western states, including 600 in Colorado, found that a majority of Western voters think the amount of their state’s electricity being produced by renewable energy sources should “dramatically increase,” even if it means paying more on their utility bill.

Conducted by both a Republican and Democratic polling firm and produced for the Colorado College State of the Rockies Project, the “Conservation in the West” survey found that voters thought the average percentage of their state’s electricity coming from renewable resources should be about 65 percent.

Generally expressing more positive impressions of solar and wind power than coal or oil (with the exception of Wyoming residents), 77 percent of all those surveyed felt environmental standards and a strong economy can co-exist. And 65 percent said they disagree that renewable energy is “too unreliable to be a significant part of our energy supply.”

And a majority of voters in all five states (70 percent), which also included New Mexico, Montana and Utah, said it’s “time to start replacing coal with other energy sources like wind and solar power.”

The poll was conducted Jan. 23-27 by Lori Weigel at Public Opinion Strategies (a Republican firm) and Dave Metz at Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates (a Democratic firm). An executive summary is available by going to the Colorado College State of the Rockies website.

“This research underscores an interesting and important trend in these five states,” said Walt Hecox, Ph.D., professor at Colorado College and director of the State of the Rockies Project. “While there are differences of opinion on a range of issues, there are true common values shared between each state, including a commitment to protect the important natural resources that make this region so unique.”

Nearly nine out of 10 respondents said they would rather spend a day outdoors than in a city, and nearly 90 percent said it’s very or extremely important to have “clean water, clean air, natural areas and wildlife as fundamental ingredients in the good quality of life in their state.”

“Particularly interesting is the emergence of renewable energy sources – such as solar and wind power – as a much more attractive option over traditional fossil fuels,” Hecox said. “Voters see renewable energy as producing jobs, and they have ambitious goals for using more of these sources to supply their states’ overall energy needs.”

Colorado Conservation Voters graded the governor in seven subjects, with grades ranging from C+ to A+, with an overall average of a high B.

“No one would dispute that the governor has led the way on the new energy economy in Colorado. He easily warrants the A+ that we proudly give him in that category,” writes CCV Executive Director Pete Maysmith in the report’s introduction.

Actually, though, in the political season that this one has become, of course someone disputes that Ritter has led the way on the new energy economy.

In this case, we bring you the words of American Constitution Party candidate for governor Tom Tancredo, speaking Saturday in Colorado Springs:

“The governor has driven coal and gas businesses out of the state because he wants a green economy. Well, you know what? Green economy is a nice phrase, but it doesn’t mean anything, either in terms of providing the green energy we are going to need or in terms of providing jobs. There are no jobs in the green economy. There are plenty of jobs in taking oil and gas out of the ground. And you can do it without leaving a footprint that harms the land, to the extent possible. It is always going to be a trade-off to one extent or another. You can have a pristine economy or you can have a lot of jobs in this state. You have to have a different attitude about business. The governor of this state and the mayor of Denver have had an anti-business attitude if it is a business they don’t like and in this case they… didn’t like oil and gas, and that has got to change.”

“Tancredo’s comments very clearly show how little he understands about Colorado’s New Energy Economy, about the great work Mayor Hickenlooper has done around green energy, and about the economics of energy in general,” said the governor’s communications director, Evan Dreyer.

“The New Energy Economy is all about balance. It’s about sun and wind and natural gas and clean coal. It’s about creating jobs and protecting our air, land, water and wildlife. Colorado now has the fourth-highest concentration of clean-energy workers in the country. We are recognized around the globe as a clean-energy leader, as a place where new and innovative technologies are born, as a place where clean-tech is helping to drive the economy forward. It sounds very much like Tancredo doesn’t have any clue about this issue, or he just wants to go backwards. Either way, it’s bad,” continued Dreyer.

Dreyer added that Ritter has worked hard on environmental issues and was pleased to be recognized in this way.

CCV disagreed with Tancredo not just on the green economy, but on oil and gas as well, giving Ritter an A on “responsible oil and gas development.”

“Gov. Ritter’s most important executive action was shepherding the development of the amended oil and gas rules in 2007-2008,” the report says. It goes on to tout Ritter for working with industry representatives as well as conservationists and community groups to develop rules that it touts as being fair and balanced while offering more protection to wildlife and surface owners.

“Westerners have a different relationship with the land, the water, the rivers, the openness, and because of that I think we forge compromises a little easier,” Ritter told a lunch crowd hosted by CCV Tuesday.

“I am proud of the new oil and gas rules—the press pitted us one against the other, and you do get in big fights. But at the end of the day, we succeeded in revising the oil and gas rules with input from industry.

“There are people in the business world, there are people in this room today who have fought me on this or that but at the end of the day, if the natural gas companies hadn’t been with us, we wouldn’t have gotten things done. They have been with us through some difficult things, and they understand not just what is good for the natural gas business but they understand that our future depends on thinking differently than we thought in the 60s and 70s.”

It should be noted that CCV’s annual lunch was attended by dozens of elected officials from around the state, but also by many natural gas industry executives as well. Besides, Ritter, billionaire entrepreneur Ted Turner also spoke at the luncheon. He blasted U.S. environmental policy, but also got lots of laughs.

On global warming, CCV gave Ritter an A-. They lauded the governor for creating a Climate Action Plan and appointing the state’s first Climate Change advisor. They praised him, as well, for testifying in Congress on the matter.

Ritter got his worst mark on “smart growth and transportation,” a C+. The report said Colorado has added 1.8 million residents since 1990 and is expected to gain another 1.6 million by 2025. They said he has done too little to plan for such growth.

On water, the governor received an A-.

“Protecting our rivers and streams is one of the biggest policy challenges in Colorado. Ensuring adequate water supplies for growing communities is an issue that affects the daily lives of all Coloradans,” CCV wrote in introducing the subject.

CCV praised Ritter for championing stream protection and also for signing conservation and efficiency legislation.

On mining, CCV gave Ritter a B+. They praised the governor for his work on reforming mining regulation, especially to protect groundwater, but criticized the administration for a lack of transparency on some matters and for his support of a new uranium processing facility despite a number of unresolved issues.

On “open spaces and wild places,” CCV gave Ritter a B. “Overall, the governor signaled a new direction by insisting on being a part of discussions regarding the management and protection of Colorado’s vast wealth of federal public lands.”

John Hickenlooper, left, and Scott McInnis.

“I do think that some of the rule making went too far. I do think that some of them can not be applied statewide, but I never said I wanted to repeal them,” Hickenlooper said Wednesday at the Rocky Mountain Energy Epicenter Conference put on by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA). “I think to reopen [the regulations] creates a great deal of uncertainty.”

Colorado Conservation Voters Executive Director Pete Maysmith said claims of a Hickenlooper turnaround on oil and gas regulations appeared unfounded. He said while media reports have painted a murky picture of Hickenlooper’s position, the importance of the oil and gas regulations to his organization led him to attend the Petroleum Club speech McInnis referenced. Maysmith said while there he didn’t hear any indication Hickenlooper planned to turn back the clock on regulations, which would have caused his group to act.    

“We oppose any attempts to roll back the rules,” Maysmith said. “They were passed unanimously by the oil and gas commission. If a candidate says they are going to roll back the rules, then of course that is a concern to us … I didn’t hear Mayor Hickenlooper say he was going to roll back the rules. No. 

“It is our hope and expectation that whoever is elected governor is going to recognize that these help to keep Colorado the special unique place that it is,” Maysmith added.    

Hickenlooper’s campaign released this statement during Wednesday’s debate:

“Hickenlooper has been consistent on the rules, saying that he would not reopen the rules. Instead he would work with the authority already granted by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.”

The moderator for the discussion, Adam Schrager of 9News, picked up on McInnis’s accusations and asked Hickenlooper if he was waffling on a decision to change the oil and gas commission regulations put in place under Gov. Bill Ritter after a nearly two-year public hearing process.

“It is not waffling at all,” Hickenlooper said. “The choice is to reopen the oil and gas rule making and go through that process again and open old wounds. Or you can say the process right now is correcting the mistakes that are there, and so those mistakes are going to get worked out in the process. Those are two very different responses.”

McInnis said while environmental concerns needed to be addressed, the industry needed to be spurred forward by a new makeup on the oil and gas commission that puts a greater emphasis on industry professionals.

“You have three experts on the commission of oil and gas out of nine. It is not a social engineering commission; it is the oil and gas commission.”

However, Hickenlooper responded that though new individuals would be appointed to the board, he did not feel that the overall makeup of the board needs to be changed. Augmenting the current design, which includes both environmental and industry representatives, was not in the cards, Hickenlooper said. However, he said each should be an expert in the oil an gas industry.

McInnis said Hickenlooper went too far in his desire to create green fuels in the state, and said he wanted to get rid of the automobile instead of converting them to natural gas. “He doesn’t talk about converting cars to natural gas, which would be a natural answer. He says we have to get rid of cars.”

It was a statement Hickenlooper’s camp called patently false, adding that Hickenlooper has publicly stated his support for “compressed natural gas stations along interstates and compressed natural gas vehicle fleets in the public and private sector.”

While it was clear the oil and gas industry professionals liked what they heard from McInnis during the talks, it was less clear how Colorado voters will respond to calls to pare down the New Energy Economy and invite an era of decreased regulation into the state.