In an August 26, 2016 Washington Legal Foundation Legal Backgrounder, Fighting the Frack Attack: The State of State Preemption Efforts, Kelley, Drye & Warren LLP attorneys Wayne D’Angelo and Travis Cushman document how the highest courts in four states have addressed local government limits on highly successful oil and gas extraction methods, such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. The most recent state court to consider the issue, the Colorado Supreme Court, held that two local governments’ limits on extraction techniques conflicted with the state’s oil and gas regulatory regime.
The paper noted that at the time of its release, it was unclear whether the Colorado Supreme Court’s rulings would remain in force because “Colorado is at the epicenter of a heated ballot initiative to change the state’s oil and gas laws.”
The Denver Post reported August 29 that the sponsors of two ballot initiatives related to oil and gas extraction failed to collect the number of requisite signatures for a November 8 vote. One measure would have prohibited new oil and gas facilities within 2,500 feet of homes; the other would have expanded local governments’ authority to restrict hydraulic fracturing. The Colorado Secretary of State’s random sampling of signatures for the two initiatives not only showed that their sponsors came up short of the 98,492 needed, but also that some of the signatures may have been forged.
Activists hostile to domestic energy development also failed in 2014 to place similar measures before Colorado voters.