According to the Aspen Times, the commissioners voted 4-0 – with one commissioner absent – to back the longstanding and in some cases controversial proposal, which has now been broken down into more digestible chunks.

The original Hidden Gems proposal included U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in four counties, including Pitkin, Gunnison, Eagle and Summit.

Before Congress went out on its summer recess, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, whose 2nd Congressional District includes Eagle and Summit counties, floated the Eagle and Summit County Wilderness Preservation Act, which would designate 88,000 acres of new wilderness and 78,000 acres as special management areas.

The Pitkin County commissioners only supported wilderness designation with the county boundaries. A Nov. 23 public hearing will determine whether the Gunnison County commissioners support the Hidden Gems proposal in that county.

Opponents of new wilderness argued for more negotiation, which has been under way for two years. They want to keep more public lands open to mechanized (mountain biking) and motorized (all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles) travel.

But proponents say many concessions have already made and Colorado’s public lands need to be fully preserved as wilderness for future generations. They plan to take the Hidden Gems proposal for Pitkin and Gunnison counties to U.S. Rep.-elect Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, in hopes he’ll sponsor a wilderness bill similar to the Polis bill.

Tipton beat out 3rd Congressional District Rep. John Salazar earlier this month. Salazar has already sponsored a wilderness bill in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado.

The Eagle River Water and Sanitation District wants the 342,000-acre, four-county, two-national-forest wilderness expansion – which prohibits motorized travel and mechanized or industrial uses on public lands – to be delayed by two years to allow more study of how watersheds should be managed.

Polis is considering all the alternatives and could introduce a bill a soon as this fall, but the 2nd Congressional District representative for Vail and surrounding Eagle County is looking to garner local support first. Six areas of Eagle County are being considered for wilderness designation, and the water district says all six include watersheds critical to local residents and future growth.

Linn Brooks, assistant general manager for the water district, told the Vail Town Council restoring watersheds ravaged by fires like the massive Hayman blaze is one major concern the district has about permanently locking up so much national forest in wilderness areas.

Proponents for Hidden Gems, including the Wilderness Society, expressed surprise at the district’s opposition, saying they’ve had a seat at the negotiating table all along. And some town officials seemed satisfied with the plan locally after it was modified to address concerns about mountain pine bark beetle mitigation raised by the Vail Fire Department.

Some backers of mechanized recreational travel, including mountain bikers, said alternative conservation measures should be explored so as not to lock out two-wheeled travelers, but town council member Margaret Rogers said she rides and is happy with changes made by the Hidden Gems proponents.

“They’ve done what needed to be done” regarding mountain biking, Rogers said, adding there are still thousands of miles of trails left to ride on in Eagle County. She made a motion to approve the resolution, got a second, but then pulled her motion when three other council members opposed it based on the water district concerns, as well as other issues.

The council will take the matter up again in September when a seventh council member can be present to break any potential deadlocks on the matter.

Udall and Bennet, both Democrats, were part of a 53-47 rejection of Murkowski’s resolution, which environmental groups in Colorado claimed would have cost state residents $18 million at the gas pumps in 2016 by upping oil dependence to the tune of 7 million gallons a year.

Specifically, the resolution would have blocked new EPA clean car standards requiring 2012-16 cars and light trucks use less oil.

“The Gulf disaster is a painful reminder that we must move our country off of oil,” Environment Colorado field director Gavin Clark said in a release. “We’re thankful that today Sens. Udall and Benner voted against this Washington bailout to big oil and other polluters. We urge [Udall and Bennet] to now help pass a comprehensive clean energy and climate bill through the Senate this year.”

The resolution had the backing of Republicans and some coal-country Democrats like Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. Colorado Republicans predictably slammed the EPA and praised Murkowski’s efforts.

“We’re not talking about a knee jerk reaction to an oil spill in the Gulf,” state Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said in a release. “We’re talking about the EPA taking authority they don’t have and declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant, which is absurd.”

A majority of scientists have concluded carbon dioxide is one of the key greenhouse gases contributing to global climate change. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the EPA can regulate carbon dioxide as a form of air pollution.

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The committee passed the “Assistance, Quality, and Affordability Act of 2010 (pdf),” which amends the Safe Drinking Water Act to increase funding to states, water systems and “disadvantaged communities,” step up EPA enforcement and encourage better environmental and financial management of water systems, among other things. But the committee did not accept DeGette’s hydraulic fracturing amendment.

Hydraulic fracturing is the widely used process of injecting water, sand and undisclosed chemicals under high pressure into natural gas wells to fracture tight formations and free up more gas. Critics in Colorado and elsewhere are concerned it can lead to contamination of groundwater supplies, and DeGette wants to remove a 2005 exemption for the process under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

As the Safe Drinking Water Act bill moves through Congress, environmentalists want to see the hydraulic fracturing issue revisited.

“Congress has an opportunity to address the growing threats to our drinking water coming from dangerous gas drilling practices. We encourage our representatives in Congress to make certain that drilling for natural gas does not come at the expense of our drinking water. And we support all efforts to make sure that toxic chemicals aren’t coming out of our taps,” Piper Crowell, Clean Water Advocate for Environment America, said in a release.

In other hydraulic fracturing, or fracking news, investors holding 26.3 percent of the stock of ExxonMobil – set to become the nation’s largest natural gas producer with the acquisition of XTO Energy – supported a proposal asking the company to disclose fracking chemicals.

Put forth by the shareholder advocacy group “As You Sow,” which holds nearly 17,000 ExxonMobil shares, the proposal received five times the usual level of support for a first-time environmental resolution put forth to the board of a major energy company, according to the group.

“Today’s vote sent a strong message to ExxonMobil that shareholders are concerned about how it is dealing with hydraulic fracturing, especially in light of the expansion that will make it the nation’s largest natural gas company,” As You Sow’s Michael Passoff said in a release.

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(Photo/Joy of the Mundane, Flickr)

Mike Kempe, who works at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, once again finds himself battling his fellow board members at the state’s largest rural electric association (REA) – the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) in Sedalia.

The co-op, which provides power to more than 140,000 member-owners in the suburbs east, west and south of Denver, has a long history of bitterly fighting most renewable energy and conservation rebate mandates, arguing such initiatives drive up electricity prices.

Earlier this month six of the seven elected board members approved a resolution (pdf) opposing state Rep. Claire Levy’s REA board election transparency bill (pdf), which requires very basic practices such as informing members of elections in time for candidates to get on the ballot; posting minutes of board meetings online; and allowing members to address the board during meetings.

Kempe voted against the resolution, which passed 6-1.

“The board is elected by the people, or at least it should be elected by the people,” Kempe said. “They’re representatives and they should be going out of their way to communicate what’s going on in a factual and unbiased manner, and that is lacking in our co-op.”

When Levy first announced plans to introduce HB 1098, IREA spokesman and former Republican state Sen. Williams Schroeder said the Boulder lawmaker was merely continuing her personal vendetta against the co-op.

“It’s more on the basis that we’re not supportive of her green-energy direction, and that’s what I’ve noticed coming from her in the past,” Schroeder said in a previous interview. “It’s more, just like it was last year, retaliation for us being very vocal about her trying to direct costs on energy.”

But since then the bill has earned the stamp of approval of the statewide organization representing most of the nonprofit REAs in the state – the Colorado Rural Electric Association (CREA).

One co-op, however, thought the bill was such a no-brainer that the CREA should do more than merely support it, and should actively promote its passage. The Delta Montrose Electric Association dropped out of the CREA over the matter, as well as what board members felt was an ongoing pattern of the CREA failing to endorse or at least advocate for renewable energy and conservation measures.

Kempe felt compelled to respond to the IREA resolution, which makes conspicuous note of his opposition. He posted a lengthy letter on the local blog pinecam.com spelling out what he deems misrepresentations in the resolution.

One of the points of contention in the resolution that was sent out to co-op members – a restriction against co-op publications during election periods – was actually removed from the bill and is not in the current version passed by the House and under consideration by the Senate.

“Especially in areas that are just barely on the outskirts of Denver, people just think that they belong to another [investor-owned] Xcel Energy, but a co-op is different because it’s actually owned by the members and we have a right to know what’s going on in the co-op,” Kempe said. “It’s the responsibility of the co-op management and the board of directors to communicate effectively what’s going on.”

Last April, three so-called “green” candidates lost board election bids, accusing incumbent IREA board members and staff of engaging in unfair campaign practices.

In his letter, Kempe spells out those allegations and makes it clear Levy’s bill would rectify the situation in future elections:

1. Members received no information about the election until after the deadline for candidacy had passed.
2. IREA management spent large sums of co-op money in advertising and for special mailings during the campaign that echoed the campaign messages of incumbent Board members.
3. The general manager personally funded the campaigns of the very board members who set his salary – a practice which in my opinion is patently unethical.
4. Ballots were knowingly enclosed in transparent envelopes, allowing members’ votes to be visible to IREA management.
5. Incumbent candidates were told when ballots would be mailed while challengers were denied this information. Non-incumbent candidates literally did not know when the election would be held.

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According to the Montrose Daily Press, commissioners Ron Henderson and Gary Ellis rejected a resolution supporting the 2010 Census because it will actually count people living in the country – information that might be generally beneficial for Uncle Sam.

(Staver: Flickr)

“I just don’t think it’s right (to count undocumented residents). I just don’t think it’s being done correctly,” Henderson told the paper. “It’s not that we’re stopping it, but our government needs to wake up. It’s not waking up.”

Ellis balked for the same reason, rejecting the Census Bureau’s notion that residency status is not relevant in the process of conducting an accurate population count, according to the paper. “Otherwise, from my perspective, we really kind of support people who are violating our laws,” he said.

Commissioner David White, who was clearly exasperated with the invasion of liberal greenies from Telluride during the uranium hearings, apparently doesn’t share Henderson and Ellis’s take on the 2010 Census. He voted in favor of the resolution.

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The two dissenting votes came from board members who wanted to poll the Aspen Chamber’s membership before taking on the U.S. Chamber – an increasingly controversial organization that has been criticized by a number of Colorado businesses and seen a recent exodus of companies like Apple and Nike.

The Aspen Chamber, a member of the U.S. Chamber, adopted a resolution rejecting the national group’s policies and urging it to cease lobbying against climate change legislation. The board also voted to invite U.S. Chamber CEO Thomas J. Donohue to come to Aspen and explain his thinking.

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The question: Have Colorado purists Tom Tancredo and Josh Penry made solo-GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Scott McInnis endorse the Bopp resolution? Text after the jump:

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee.

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Republican county commissioners Mike Samson and John Martin approved a resolution opposing the FRAC (Fracturing Responsibility and Chemical Awareness) Act sponsored by Democratic U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis. Democratic county commissioner Trési Houpt, who has previously voiced support for the legislation, voted against the resolution.

U.S. Reps DeGette and Polis

“Martin and Samson made it a partisan political issue, voicing their concerns about the current federal administration, and that has nothing to do with the point at hand, and that is that citizens of Garfield County are getting sick from drilling practices and bad water and air,” said Leslie Robinson of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance, which had previously presented a draft resolution to the commissioners supporting the FRAC Act.

“Apparently the two commissioners feel like so what? They’re going to support the industry, who they feel are overregulated, and they think the state laws are fine enough to protect air and water, regardless of the fact that [the Colorado Oil and Gas Association] is suing the state to stop enforcement of those laws,” Robinson said.

Houpt also sits on the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the state board charged with overseeing natural gas production. The COGCC adopted tougher new drilling regulations last spring that require chemical inventories of hydraulic fracturing fluids be made available to emergency responders, but the FRAC Act would require broader public disclosure.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of injecting water, sand and undisclosed chemicals deep into gas wells under very higher pressure in order to fracture tight geological formations and free up more gas. Critics say the process can lead to contamination of drinking water supplies, and the FRAC Act would remove a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption granted in 2005 under the Bush administration.

COGCC director David Neslin said the state regs are adequate to cover fracking, and that EPA oversight could actually spread his staff too thin if it’s required to permit each fracking procedure. The state’s trade association, COGA, has sued to block the new COGCC regulations.

Houpt previously told the Colorado Independent that the FRAC Act made sense as long as federal and local regulators weren’t overlapping efforts. She also said she expects fierce opposition, likely from the oil and gas industry, when she runs for reelection in 2010.

“There’s a place for all of these layers of regulation,” Houpt said. “We just need to make sure that all of the various areas are covered that need to be and that we’re not working against each other.”

Martin and Samson may see some political fallout as a result of Monday’s decisions as well. While neither faces reelection in 2010, there is growing sentiment on the Western Slope that the oil and gas industry should be more tightly regulated.

One recent survey found that a majority of the voters polled in Colorado’s Third Congressional District, represented by Democrat John Salazar, support the FRAC Act. That district includes Garfield County.

Meanwhile, despite charges by the industry that the new regulations are causing them to scale back or pull out of the state, Williams – the largest producer on the Western Slope, recently revealed it will be adding three more drilling rigs over the next year.

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Drilling pads on the Roan Plateau

The FRAC Act, introduced by Colorado congressional members Diana DeGette (D-Denver) and Jared Polis (D-Boulder), as well as New York Rep. Maurice Hinchey, seeks to regulate the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Critics say the process, which injects water, sand and chemicals deep into gas wells, can contaminate drinking water supplies.

According to a story in Saturday’s Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation has recorded 270 incidents of “wastewater spills, well contamination, explosions, methane migration and ecological damage related to gas production in the state since 1979.”

Only 60 of those incidents were discovered by the DEC, with the rest reported by residents or other public safety officials. In a refrain similar to Colorado, DEC officials in New York say current state regulations are adequate to police the industry even in the face of a looming drilling surge to tap into the massive Marcellus Shale – the nation’s largest gas field.

Colorado officials, with some of the toughest drilling regulations in the nation, say they can handle fracking and don’t need Congress to lift a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption for the process that was granted during the Bush administration in 2005. But critics here say there have been too many cases of water contamination by unknown chemicals related to fracking.

Public disclosure of the chemicals is unnecessary and would compromise valuable trade secrets, oil and gas industry officials claim.

Walter Hang, president of Toxic Targeting, put together the list of New York incidents. According to the Press & Sun-Bulletin, Hang directs an environmental research firm that provides information to engineers, consultants and municipalities. “We’re students of how you clean this crap up,” he told the paper. “That’s what we really care about.”

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