Tag: Anadarko

"The companies will use these rules to make improvements that they'll tout in years to come."

The event underlined how the movement for and against drilling in the era of the fracking boom has become intensely local.

Revelations Monday that Houston-based Anadarko may be sitting on up to a billion barrels of oil along Colorado’s Front Range immediately raised concerns about the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing in an area of increased residential growth in recent years.

Colorado Fourth-District Republican US Rep Cory Gardner is filling his campaign coffers for 2012 as he did in 2010 by leaning heavily on oil-and-gas industry donors. He raked in $370,000 in the quarter that just ended. That's the most of any candidate for federal office from Colorado and topped his take in previous quarters by roughly $100,000. One of every ten dollars Gardner brought in last quarter came from oil and gas, and this quarter the percentage is higher, coming in at roughly 12 percent. That notable campaign finance record paired with the high-profile pro-drilling and environmental-regulation-rollback positions he has taken mark out the freshman congressman as an aspiring top-level advocate for oil and gas on the Hill.

One of the most strident critics of last spring’s oil and gas drilling regulations was state Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, who fought to the bitter end to kill or at least neuter the new regulations. He claimed that in pushing through the regs, Gov. Bill Ritter was "killing the goose that laid the golden egg" in Colorado and driving away jobs. Supporters of new regulations disagreed. Now Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. has effectively weighed in by announcing its plans to erect new rigs and drill hundreds of new wells in the state's Fourth District-- that is, across the exact counties where Gardner is stumping to replace Democrat U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey in Washington.

Oil and gas companies doing business in Colorado have dropped a mind-blowing $10 million into Amendment 58 — a statewide initiative that would cut their state severance tax and raise roughly $321 million a year for college scholarships, wildlife habitat and other programs. But when it comes to whether big oil may be pumping in cash to help Republicans retake control of the state Senate, well, they're just not saying. And in fact, they don't have to.