wildlife habitat

State Rep. Laura Bradford says ranchers and landowners in and around Grand Junction and Mesa County are enraged by new, more environmentally stringent drilling regulations keeping them from fully developing their oil and gas mineral rights.

With new, more environmentally stringent oil- and gas-drilling regulations a perfunctory state Senate vote and gubernatorial signature away from going into effect next month, all the Republican gnashing of teeth seems to have fallen largely on deaf ears.

The oil-and-gas debate on Colorado’s Western Slope is as rife with contradictions as the ridgelines and valleys of Garfield County are with drilling rigs.

Hunters in pickup trucks you’d expect to see plastered with “Drill here, drill now” bumper stickers instead sport the “Save the Roan” rallying cry. Ski-area executives whose industry in some cases was built with oil money can’t buy enough wind energy nor contribute fast enough to campaigns to raise oil and gas severance taxes.