Longmont CO

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">new node 9/14 in honor of gessler/ati see <b>local regs: frack and campaign finance disclosure</b></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">shires ati lefer, rand paul bribery iowa caucus 2012 sorensen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">colo trad rep but flipped dem early 2000's so fierce counter attack to take it back, plus fracking</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>=</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">worst is props?!</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/11/07/midterm-elections-green-ballot-measures-fossil-fuel/">https://theintercept.com/2018/11/07/midterm-elections-green-ballot-measures-fossil-fuel/</a></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">intercept</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>no lnx&nbsp;</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">tHE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY SPENT $100 MILLION TO KILL GREEN BALLOT MEASURES IN THREE STATES — AND WON</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One clear takeaway from the ballot initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, and Washington state is that fossil fuel money can buy elections.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kate Aronoff</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">November 7 2018,&nbsp;</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PATRICIA NELSON WAS eager for a fresh start when she moved her family from Louisiana back home to&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Weld County,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;Colorado</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;in 2016. Soon after, Nelson’s friend encouraged her to come out to a meeting where Lisa McKenzie, an environmental chemist and epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health, was presenting her research on the health impacts of oil and natural gas drilling.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Weld County has one of the highest concentrations of oil and gas wells in the country — 23,000 within county limits. Its air quality carries an “F” rating from the American Lung Association</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;with infant mortality rates twice as high as those in surrounding counties.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;<b>With around 50,000 active wells overall, Colorado just surpassed California to become America’s third-largest oil and gas producer after Texas and North Dakota.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“It was a crash course in fracking,” Nelson told me by phone. Colorado law, she learned, states that drilling operations have to be 1,000 feet away from school buildings, but that ordinance — known as a setback — doesn’t include surrounding school properties, like playgrounds or soccer field</b>s. There, as McKenzie would explain, kids playing and running around breathe harder and heavier, increasing the amount of poisoned air that enters their lungs and bloodstream.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">All of this hit too close to home: As she also learned, oil companies had just been approved to open 24 new drill sites near her then-4-year-old son Diego’s school, the kindergarten through third grade campus of Bella Romero Academy; the drilling would take place just behind the fourth through eighth grade campus, where her niece and nephew were students. The decision to drill near Bella Romero at all — where 87 percent of attendees are students of color, and 90 percent fall below the poverty line — was made after parents at an overwhelmingly white school refused to have the same rigs in their kids’ backyards.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Shocked by what she discovered, Nelson joined a coalition that would later become known as&nbsp;<b>Colorado Rising</b>&nbsp;and traveled around the state, telling people about the stakes at her son’s school. Colorado Rising’s work included a push for Proposition 112, a ballot measure to mandate a 2,500-foot setback zone between drill sites and homes, schools, and other vulnerable areas. That measure was defeated 57 to 43 on Tuesday night, in large part thanks to a full-fledged freakout by the fossil fuel industry, which, with $40 million, outspent Prop 112 proponents by at least 40 to 1.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“I guess the oil and gas industry is just another example of money buying elections.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“This is much farther than we’ve gotten before, and we’re no longer going to accept this industry bullying us,” Nelson told me last night, celebrating the fact that Prop 112 even made it on the ballot. “We had a pretty good shot, but they definitely had way more resources than we did. I guess the oil and gas industry is just another example of money buying elections</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”</span></b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Environmental initiatives on the ballot elsewhere in the country, vehemently opposed by industry groups, also flopped.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;<b>A ballot initiative in Washington state to levy a $15 per ton carbon fee on polluters and invest the revenue in job creation, green infrastructure, and more was defeated 56 to 44 thanks to over $30 million from the oil and gas industry</b>.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Arizona, electric utilities spent $31 million against Prop 127, which would have upped the state’s renewable portfolio standard, requiring the power sector to generate at least half its power from renewables by 2030</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.&nbsp;<b>The proposition was largely bankrolled by liberal donor Tom Steyer via NextGen America, which poured $24 million in support, but it failed resoundingly, garnering just 30 percent of the vote</b>....[more]</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">tUESDAY WASN’T AN unambiguous win for the industry, though — even in Colorado. Amendment 74 — polling high before the election and far better than Prop 112 — would have allowed property owners to sue local governments and the state for any infringement on their profits, but fell short of the 55 percent of votes needed to be grafted into Colorado’s constitution</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The campaign for Amendment 74 was small compared to the fight against Prop 112 but still sizable, with&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">$11.2 million raised by backers — about $10 million from oil and gas — and $6.3 by opponents under the banner Save Our Neighborhoods.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Still, one clear takeaway from the midterms ballot initiatives is that fossil fuel money can buy elections.&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Apparently, $100 million can buy four of them. “They’re putting up big numbers,” said Edgar Franks, a Bellingham-based labor organizer who helped draft and campaign for I-1631 with the environmental justice group Front and Centered. “You can tell that where this is actually a threat to the way that they do business, because they know it’s going to work.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While Washington Gov. Jay Inslee backed I-1631 — having failed to get his own carbon fee through the legislature this spring — his Colorado counterpart was on the opposite side of the fight in his state.<b>&nbsp;Prop 112 failed amid opposition not just from the oil and gas industry, but also from now-outgoing Colorado governor and former oil industry geologist John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, along with governor-elect Jared Polis</b>&nbsp;and his Republican opponent. The Colorado Democratic Party, however, supported it. Polis’s opposition was ironic, given that he himself had spearheaded the push for a 2,000-foot setback rule several years ago before eventually withdrawing it from the ballot.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Despite Polis’s opposition to Prop 112, Colorado Rising is cautiously optimistic about working with his administration</b>, a position bolstered by the fact that Democrats managed to flip the state legislature last night. “Polis clearly understands that fracking is dangerous near communities,” said Micah Parkin, a board member of Colorado Rising and executive director of 350 Colorado. “He may not agree with us on 2,500 feet, but he clearly gets that it doesn’t belong near our children’s schools and homes and water sources.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The bar for improving Hickenlooper’s record on extraction has been set pretty low.</b>&nbsp;The outgoing governor had threatened to call a special lame duck session of the state legislature in the event of Prop 112’s passage.“ It’s incredibly undemocratic,” said Parkin in advance of the vote. “The very idea that he would think it’s OK to turn around and ignore the will of the people, when thousands of his own constituents have worked so hard.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The statement wasn’t unprecedented for&nbsp;<b>Hickenlooper. In 2013, he openly threatened to sue any city that banned fracking within its borders and in fact, did sue Longmont</b>&nbsp;and Fort Collins after they implemented restrictions on fracking<b>.&nbsp;</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The state’s suit also undermined the legal standing of three other bans and moratoria.&nbsp;</b>“Topics like these,” Nelson told me, “are the ones that enable the true colors of our representatives to come out. It just shows that he’s never been on the side of the people, he’s been on the side of industry.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Predictably, then, the fight over Proposition 112 got ugly</b>. Oil and gas interests painted the measure as an attempt to ban fracking in the state, though it in fact only added on to policies that already exist, which require a 500-foot setback from homes and 1,000-foot setback from schools.<b>&nbsp;In collecting signatures this summer to get Prop 112 on the ballot, canvassers were followed and surrounded by paid protesters</b>.&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 0);">“It would be between two and four of us who would plan out where to collect signatures,” Nelson said. “We would get there and 15 or 20 minutes later, these kids would show up with their signs. Unless they were following us, how would they know where we were?” She suspects at least some of them were University of Colorado students and had awkward encounters with them around town after encountering them while petitioning.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A political consultant hired by Colorado Rising this summer to help collect signatures also walked out of the state with 15,000 signatures, which were only retrieved after the group filed a lawsuit to have them returned.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The industry also publicly — and knowingly — overstated the impact of the measure.</b>&nbsp;As Denver’s 9News found from a leaked report that industry groups had seen a report from the consultancy RS Energy stating that their losses would be far less than what they projected out over airwaves. The industry-friendly state regulator, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, had instead claimed in July that some 80 percent of non-federal land in Colorado — the only land covered by Prop 112 — would be off-limits to drilling. Yet the RS Energy report shows that companies would maintain access to 61 percent of the state’s oil and gas reserves. That’s partially because although companies would be barred from drilling within setback zones, horizontal drilling techniques — where the well mouth is within permitted drilling areas — could still access minerals under off-limits areas from up to a mile away.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“People have tried so many different ways to protect themselves over the years, and this was the last recourse.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While it would have been the country’s most ambitious regulatory check on the fossil fuel industry, Parkin and Nelson both emphasized that Prop 112 was a kind of method of last resort. Those looking to place more regulations on the oil and gas industry had tried to get bills passed through the legislature and appealed to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — all to no avail. “People have tried so many different ways to protect themselves over the years,” Parkin said, “and this was the last recourse.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A supporter of Initiative 1631 holds a sign referencing the Nisqually Indian Tribe, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018, during a rally supporting I-1631, a November ballot measure in Washington state that would charge a fee on carbon emissions from fossil fuels. The rally was organized by tribal and environmental leaders, and took place near the offices of the W<b>estern States Petroleum Association&nbsp;</b>in Lacey, Wash. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>IT WAS A similar story in Washington, where the legislature failed earlier this year to get a somewhat similar carbon tax measure through the legislature, falling short by “one or two votes</b>.” A 2016 ballot initiative had failed to — by a margin of 20 percent — after drawing fire from the same groups now pushing for I-1631 over its lack of both investment in green projects and attention to the demands of climate and environmental justice groups. The campaign this time around was comparatively massive, drawing in a huge coalition of labor groups, indigenous communities, climate nonprofits, and more.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The biggest limiting factor to commonsense climate policies like Prop 112 and I-1631 isn’t either old school climate denial or bad design, but the sheer force of the fossil fuel industry’s seemingly endless capacity to pour money into elections</b>. While theoretically supportive of carbon pricing and some vague sense of climate action, fossil fuel interests this cycle showed their cards: If it poses a threat to their profits, it’s going down. Fightbacks like the one posed to Amendment 74 are possible. Yet with Democrats taking the House — with several climate hawks now in their ranks — any push on climate there will have to reckon with the colossal funding might of the industry, and the kind of opposition Prop 112 faced from members of their own party sponsored by them.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On the heels of the latest IPCC report — which makes the need to decarbonize every sector of the economy painfully clear — there isn’t really an alternative to going toe to toe with those companies, no matter how much of a David and Goliath fight it might be.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“This isn’t over for me, personally.&nbsp; We have had a warning,” Nelson said, referencing that report, “that we either end our dependence on fossil fuels or things are going to get extremely rough for mankind. For me, it shows that it’s just about greed and money for this industry.”</div></div></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/12/bradley-foundation-funds-web-climate-change-deniers/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/12/bradley-foundation-funds-web-climate-change-deniers/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Armiak</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bradley Foundation internal documents reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reveal a concerted effort by the organization to delegitimize climate science, while promoting fossil fuel energy development in the United States.</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An analysis of Bradley’s climate-related activities shows that the foundation has made significant grants to support energy policy think tanks, attack-dog groups that target environmentalists, and efforts to discredit climate science.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A 2013 internal foundation document details how Bradley “instructed staff to explore options…to make more energy-related grants.” The document also notes that the Board gave a “terminal grant” of $263,591 to the Sand County Foundation (SCF), which previously administered the Bradley Fund for the Environment.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documents do not reveal Bradley’s motivation in splitting from SCF, but they do outline a serious effort to promote fossil fuel industry interests at the expense of the environment.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CENTERS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL AND FOSSIL FUEL DEVELOPMENT</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As part of its push to support studies and public relations to cast doubt on mounting scientific evidence on climate change,&nbsp;<b>Bradley has focused its resources on “Energy Policy Centers,” many of which are housed in “Bradley-supported”&nbsp;<a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/spn/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">State Policy Network</a>&nbsp;(SPN) “think tanks.</b>” SPN is a web of 156 right-wing groups in 49 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Canada, and the UK that receives funding from the billionaire Koch brothers, the Bradley Foundation, and the Roe Foundation, as well as many multi-national corporations.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The examined documents show that the&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Center for Energy Policy and the Environment</span>&nbsp;(CEPE) at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Manhattan_Institute_for_Policy_Research" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;"><b>Manhattan Institute&nbsp;</b>for Policy Research</a>&nbsp;(MIPR), a member of SPN, received a total of $500,000 for its Center, with another $200,000 distributed in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bradleyfdn.org/Portals/0/pdfs/Report2016/2016%20Annual%20Report.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">2016</a>.&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, February 23, 2016)</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;CEPE works to promote fossil fuel development despite the devastating effects of climate change. A background document on CEPE states its goal clearly: “The Center’s research and public education activity aims at demonstrating that the United States is poised to reap substantial economic benefits in the form of job creation, lower gasoline and electricity prices, and increased productivity provided public policies allow companies to access valuable energy resources and distribute them at home and abroad.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A recommendation by Bradley staff on the Manhattan Institute’s 2016 grant proposal specifically states that CEPE is worth funding because, “They have succeeded in identifying and publicizing so many of the falsehoods that surround energy and the environment.”&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, February 23, 2016)</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;An</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">example of this “success” can be found in the work of CEPE senior fellow Mark Mills, who is recognized as originating the idea that North America can surpass the Middle East as the largest energy supplier in the world.&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Manhattan Institute for Policy Research GPR, November 12, 2013)</em></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Energy Policy Center</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;(EPC) at another SPN “think tank”, the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Independence_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Independence Institute</a>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;received $195,000 from the Bradley Foundation between 2012 and 2016.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Bradley documents examined show that EPC’s purpose is to&nbsp;<b>“consciously counter-balance former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s environmental think tank” at Colorado State University,</b>&nbsp;which promotes a “New Energy Economy.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bradley considers EPC to be highly successful in fighting local and federal environmental initiatives</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. The Bradley documents note that EPC was a “key coalition partner” in preempting local bans on fracking in Colorado, and that it “has developed a toolkit for policymakers, attorneys general, and other conservative state think tanks to help them push back against U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Independence Institute GPR, June 2, 2015)</em></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In addition to these two centers</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Bradley has funded the&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Center for Energy and Environment</span>&nbsp;(CEE) at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Competitive_Enterprise_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a>&nbsp;(CEI), an “associate member” of SPN, and the&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Center for Energy Innovation and Independence</span>&nbsp;at&nbsp;<b>Consumers’ Research.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>CEE is led by the prominent climate change denier Myron Ebell</b>, who steered Trump’s EPA transition team. Ebell also chairs the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cooler_Heads_Coalition" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Cooler Heads Coalition</a>, which brings together right-wing activists and scholars for monthly meetings. The coalition was established on May 6, 1997, “to dispel the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific and risk analysis.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CEI was long tied to tobacco disinformation campaigns, but is now a leading organization in the movement to discredit climate science.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bradley does not mention how much of its funding to CEI was designated for CEE operations. Between 1986 and 2015, Bradley Foundation gave $2.2 million to CEI, the majority of which was “to support general operations.”&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit;">(Competitive Enterprise Institute GPR, June 2, 2015)</em>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Center for Energy Innovation and Independence received $250,000 from Bradley in 2013 to get the new group off the ground.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;According to a background document, the group “will closely monitor federal environmental regulations and potentially lay the foundation for multi-state litigation against them, similar to those actions in the Obamacare and Dodd-Frank lawsuits, of which aggressive (Scott) Pruitt was and is a part.” Pruitt is the former AG of Oklahoma and recently resigned as the EPA Administrator under Trump.</span></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SMEAR CAMPAIGNS AND FUNDING EFFORTS TO DISCREDIT CLIMATE SCIENCE</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the same time Bradley rolled out funding for “Energy Policy Centers,” it was doling out cash to discredit environmental organizations and climate change science.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A grant proposal record for the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Center_for_Consumer_Freedom" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Center for Consumer Freedom</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;(CCF), a front group created by the close Bradley ally&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out;">Rick Berman</a></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, details an&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">organized effort to weaken the credibility of well-respected, national environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, the National Resources Defense Council, and Food and Water Watch.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(The Center for Consumer Freedom GPR, November 12, 2013)</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;Berman also founded&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Rick_Berman" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Berman and Company</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a notorious Washington, D.C.-based corporate lobbying and PR company known for creating numerous corporate “front groups” and astroturf propaganda campaigns.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Berman’s anti-environmental project at CCF was called&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Big Green Radicals</span>&nbsp;and was seeded with a $150,000 “public education”&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bradleyfdn.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=5haFFTeImkg=&portalid=0" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: 0px 0px; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">grant</a>&nbsp;from Bradley in 2013.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Bradley’s background document, the Big Green Radicals project would include the following components:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[N]ew, updated research profiles for NRDC, Food and Water Watch, and Sierra Club; standalone websites for all three organizations; a Facebook group seeded with several thousand fans to provide a base for the message; the production of two online videos to explain the real agenda of the environmental left; and Google keyword advertising for members of the media and the public searching for information about one of the targeted groups.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In addition to providing the start-up funding for Big Green Radicals</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Bradley gave $85,000 to the&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Capital_Research_Center" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Capital Research Center</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;(CRC)</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;a group led by former Berman and Company employee Scott Walter. The grant was designated for “general operations,” but it may have been used to support the publication&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;"><em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Green Watch</em></span></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. A background document on CRC states that, “Green Watch tracks the money flow to environmental nonprofits and critiques their positions, and those of their allies, including their policymaking ones.”&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Capital Research Center GPR, August 19, 2014)</em></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Since 2014, the Bradley Foundation has distributed numerous grants to discredit the vast amount of scientific research demonstrating the harmful effects of climate change. In 2014, it gave $65,000 to the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_C.Marshall_Institute" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">George C. Marshall Institute</a>&nbsp;(GMI),</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;a right-wing front group largely funded by oil and gas interests.&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">Newsweek</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.newsweek.com/global-warming-deniers-well-funded-99775" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">called</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;GMI “a central cog in the denial machine” in 2007.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>GMI folded in late 2015,&nbsp;</b>so Bradley recommended $50,000 in “seed funding” the following year for its “successor organization,” the&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">CO2 Coalition</span>.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;The coalition is led by a&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/William_Happer" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Dr. William Happer</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a well-known climate change denier. “We’re doing our best to try and counter this myth that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant. It’s not a pollutant at all,” Happer&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=Asj-3efMVB8" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;at a Heritage Foundation event on energy and climate.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another $10,000 Bradley grant in 2014 for the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CSCDGC) went to support its&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; font-weight: 700;">Science & Public Policy Institute</span>&nbsp;(SPPI</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">). A staff recommendation notes that SPPI “has helped demonstrate that no real-world data confirms that floods, draughts [sic], or hurricanes are becoming more frequent or severe, as global-warming alarmists allege. Neither is there any real-world data that sea levels are about to rise precipitously, inundating the world’s coasted [sic] lowlands, as is also often alleged.”&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change GPR, June 17, 2014)</em></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">ENERGY&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ROUNDTABLES</span></font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Documents show that, beginning in 2013, Bradley provided funding to the&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Thomas_Jefferson_Institute_for_Public_Policy" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy</a>, also an SPN member</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, to host and organize two “energy roundtables” a year — one before the Heritage Foundation’s annual Resource Bank meeting, and the other before SPN’s annual fall meeting.&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 10, 2015)</em></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The $50,000-per-year grant from Bradley for the meetings was matched “by staff arrangement” by the&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Consumer_Energy_Alliance" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">C</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Consumer_Energy_Alliance" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">onsumer Energy Alliance</a>&nbsp;(CEA),</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;a front group for the energy industry that promotes fossil fuel development and opposes efforts to regulate its activities.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Planned and put on in close cooperation with the Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), the roundtables allow state think tanks to better promote free-market energy and environmental policies,” one document states.&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit;">(Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 12, 2013)</em></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Attendance has been high at the roundtables, with as many as “67 SPN leaders”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;attending the event in</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Denver in September 2014. The agenda for that meeting details presentations from a number of fossil fuel lovers including: Artic Power, Consumer Energy Alliance, Vital for Colorado,&nbsp;<b>Devon Energy, GOPAC</b>&nbsp;(a political action committee that backs and trains Republican candidates), and Freedom Partners. Freedom Partners, a funding conduit for the billionaire Koch brothers, delivered a talk on “Messaging and State Action.”&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit;">(Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy GPR, November 11, 2014)</em></font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BRADLEY GRANTEES WORKED TOGETHER TO DEFEAT LOCAL REGULATIONS ON FRACKING IN COLORADO</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2014, the<b> Independence Institute and Berman’s Big Green Radicals worked in lockstep in Colorado to defeat local fracking bans,</b> such as the one that passed by ballot measure in<b> Longmont in November of 2013.</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;</b>A </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2015 Bradley backgrounder on the Independence Institute praises the anti-fracking work of Independence Institute’s Energy Policy Center, saying, “It has also been a key coalition partner in the movement to stop local and statewide bans on hydraulic fracturing. Last year, current Colorado Gov. John<b> Hickenlooper crafted a delicately balanced compromise on local control of oil and gas drilling that removed all initiatives on the issue from the state ballot.”[// ca soda tax?!]</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Berman’s Big Green Radicals rolled out an attack campaign to discredit anti-fracking efforts in the state in May of 2014.&nbsp;Big Green Radicals&nbsp;<a href="https://www.biggreenradicals.com/colorado/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: inherit; transition: all 500ms ease-in-out; text-decoration-line: none;">asserted</a>&nbsp;that “extreme groups, mostly based far from Colorado in San Francisco, New York, or Washington D.C., are spending millions and spreading their anti-science message to scare voters into approving ballot measures in November to send the oil and gas industry (and the jobs and affordable energy it provides) packing from the Centennial State.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The efforts by these two groups were successful in overturning local fracking bans.</b> Bradley agreed and decreased its funding recommendation for EPC to $25,000 in 2016, saying, “it is unlikely that there will be any significant developments for EPC in the upcoming months, and therefore staff believes this reduced award is important.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is uncertain where the next battleground for energy development will be for Bradley, but the documents demonstrate that they have the funds to bankroll infrastructure in place to discredit climate science and smear the opposition.</font></p><h2 style="box-sizing: inherit; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OTHER NOTABLE BRADLEY GRANTS</font></h2><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other significant Bradley grants to support fossil fuel development or dispute climate science in recent years include:</font></p><ul style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$150,000 to Opportunity Ohio for “program activities.” (2016)</font></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">$100,000 to&nbsp;<b>Energy and Environment Legal Institute for “transparency practice general.”</b>&nbsp;(2016) HORNER SCHNARE</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$20,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment for “general operations.” (2016)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$200,000 to Competitive Enterprise Institute for “general operations” and “litigation.” (2013, 2015)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$100,000 to<b>&nbsp;The Sand County Foundation for “energy resource development.” (2014)</b></font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$100,000 to National Center for Policy Analysis for “general operations.” (2014)</font></li><li style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; list-style-type: initial; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">$20,000 to Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment for “general operations.” (2014)</font></li></ul></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.freerangelongmont.com/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">eg 2012&nbsp;<a href="http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2012/01/01/when-longmont-went-dirty/">http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2012/01/01/when-longmont-went-dirty/</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">santos ATI</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">11/2013</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">November 11th the City Council members for Longmont were sworn in – among them returning mayor Dennis Coombs.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/freerangelongmont/sets/72157637580774124/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Here’s our photos</a>.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two new members were also sworn in –</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
<b>Coombs sailed to victory with a 16% (<a href="http://webpubapps.bouldercounty.org/clerk/voterresults2013/IssueResults.aspx?issue=all" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Correction</a>&nbsp;– 17.84%) margin over his opponent Bryan Baum,</b> breaking out early with a large lead that Baum never managed to match, despite running scandal-free this time around. A push poll of unknown origin may actually have hurt the right-wing candidate by attempting to spread scurrilous rumors and deeply offending voters.Polly Christensen replaced Alex Sammoury and Jeff Moore replaced Katie Witt, both winning handily – no recounts this year.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
Well, I suppose we can&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">hope</em>…<b>Sammoury and Witt were pleasant and appeared to be relieved at leaving City Council. </b>Alex said he’d&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">‘…try and miss them…’</em>&nbsp;on Tuesday evenings, clearly being ironic. Witt pronounced&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">‘…you haven’t seen the last of me…’</em>&nbsp;and was greeting by laughter from the audience.Despite pronouncements from the right that Longmont is a ‘conservative’ town, the ‘left’ ran off two conservative candidates and defeated a tea party ex-mayor decisively. An obviously-planned kerfuffle over a months-old&nbsp;<a href="http://www.freerangelongmont.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/PollysNote.jpg" rel="lightbox[11580]" class="cboxElement" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">crabby note</a>&nbsp;from Polly Christensen was clearly the Baum’s&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">payback</strong></em>&nbsp;for being ‘<a href="http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2011/10/17/dog-attack-goes-unmentioned/" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">pooched</a>‘ in the last election. Super-classy for Abbondanza owner Bob Goff to not only&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">save</em>&nbsp;the note, but put it in the hands of Longmont’s First ‘Lady’ of muck-raking, who cackled gleefully about it. Love how she’s eager to see a fellow Longmonter in the ‘poor house’ – kinda clashes with her sweet, fundraiser persona…</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Polly had this to say about her note to Goff:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">“Usually Abondanza is my son’s and my favorite place for pizza, wine, and Parchesi. I was exhaused and was feeling a bit accosted by politics at a place where I was hoping to relax and NOT think about politics. I overreacted to the signs in the window and the political stickers on my leftover box. I wrote this cranky note on a scrap of paper. It was ill-considered, harsh, and unnecessary. I regret not just walking away and getting some sleep.”</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" line-height="line-height" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
So, all in all a very&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">interesting</em>&nbsp;night and terrifically revealing of how deep the wounds of the last election were and how badly the right wanted revenge – any revenge.Interesting tweet about the ‘Old Guard’… and the Pro-Tem vote was&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">planned…?</em>&nbsp;Really?</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">oct 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2012/10/25/behind-the-scenes-oil-and-gas-longmont/</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Once upon a time not too long ago, our terrific city was growing and evolving. Not in the usual sense of the words, but in forming a fresh identity that would lead us forwards in this new century. That is the best, most meaningful definition of “home rule,” albeit not the legal one.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And then along came the oil and gas industry. The behind-the-scenes story began in </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2009 when Longmont first lost control of its elections to outside interests with big money to spend. An organization known then as Western Tradition Partnership, now American Tradition Partnership,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> slipped into Longmont elections more or less under the radar. It fully funded a political committee who attacked candidates that it perceived as being unreceptive to their intended future agenda.</span></b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WTP/ATP is an IRS 501c4. It doesn’t have to reveal its donors. But its mission makes it clear just who those donors are. ATP is funded by extraction industries and backers who support that agenda. What do I mean by “extraction industries”? In a nutshell – mineral extraction. And for the purposes of Longmont, that means oil and gas. And that means fracking.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WTP (ATP) funded a slate of candidates to redirect the vision for Longmont. Their motive, vague and blurred at the time, was to pave the way for oil and gas drilling by means of hydraulic fracturing inside Longmont; and in doing so, to transform our fair city into something we would not recognize or want.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Bryan Baum, a former mayor now serving as a proxy for the oil and gas industry, made his motives clear in early 2010 when he stated that he wanted the city to get into the oil and gas business by exploiting its own mineral rights. </b>I watched for council agenda items on minerals. They did not appear. But they WERE there – hidden from view, without the knowledge or consent of the Longmont public, but as part of an ATP-sponsored and council majority endorsed trajectory to invite the oil and gas industry to bully its way into Longmont, leaving Longmont citizens and the city to pick up after them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The oil and gas industry’s intention to drill in Longmont came out of hiding in an ATP election survey in October 2011. And with that, “all hell broke loose.” It was staff’s intent to bring a TOP Operating conditional use permit before the Planning and Zoning Commission in November 2011. That, as they say, would have been that. Longmont would have been fracked and we wouldn’t have known what hit us.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the people of Longmont became aware of what was in store for their hometown, over and over they said, “Oh, no you don’t. This is OUR Longmont and we get to say whether or not we get fracked.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Over 8200 people signed the petition sponsored by Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont to place Question 300 that prohibits hydraulic fracking and fracking waste disposal inside Longmont city limits on our ballot</b>. Now there are those with big, big industry money behind them who are trying to silence those voices and hand over the keys to this great town to the oil and gas industry. Oil and gas companies and their trade associations (28) from all over the country and even Canada have contributed nearly a half million dollars to defeat the will of the people of Longmont. How high will that total go? One million dollars? More?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>You’ve seen their eight full-page ads with seven mayors pretending to care about the health and safety of Longmont</b>, all the while shilling for the industry who would pollute our air and water and threaten our property values by using false and deceptive quotes from politicians they’ve never supported (and likely never will) to manipulate Longmont voters. They’ve spent or accrued almost $338,000, including television ads and eight mailers. They’re determined to stomp Longmont into submission.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2009 and 2011 another industry spent huge sums of money (over $600,000) to make Longmont believe that they cared about us. Longmont voters saw through that scheme and sent them packing.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pay no attention to the “wizards” on this smokescreen. Tell the oil and gas industry and their local puppets, former or current, that you want them to go away and stay away. This is our Longmont that they are trying to destroy and we won’t allow that. Constitutional and moral rights are on our side.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vote Yes on 300 to stop them from fracking Longmont.</font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Technorati Tags:&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/American+Tradition+Partnership" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">American Tradition Partnership</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/buying+elections" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">buying elections</a>,<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/constitutional+rights+to+health+safety+and+wellbeing" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">constitutional rights to health safety and wellbeing</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/extraction+industries" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">extraction industries</a>,<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/fracking" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">fracking</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/hydraulic+fracturing" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">hydraulic fracturing</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/longmont" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">longmont</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+2009+elections" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Longmont 2009 elections</a>,<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+2011+elections" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Longmont 2011 elections</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+city+charter+amendment" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Longmont city charter amendment</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/longmont+politics" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">longmont politics</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/oil+and+gas+industry" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">oil and gas industry</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Our+Health+Our+Future+Our+Longmont" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Our Health Our Future Our Longmont</a>,<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Question+300" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Question 300</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Western+Tradition+Partnership" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Western Tradition Partnership</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Yes+on+300" rel="tag" target="self" style="box-sizing: border-box; word-wrap: break-word;">Yes on 300</a></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Baum-shell: Former Longmont mayor Bryan Baum announces election rematch</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Scott Rochat Longmont Times-Call</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">POSTED: &nbsp; 08/26/</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2013</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> 09:14:29 PM MDT | UPDATED: &nbsp; 3 YEARS AGO</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LONGMONT -- In an unexpected rematch, former mayor Bryan Baum filed Monday to run for his former office against incumbent Dennis Coombs.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"I don't think any seat should go unopposed," Baum said. "That's the way our system works best, with competition. It brings the best out in everyone."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The filing came just a couple of hours before Monday's 5 p.m. deadline.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The move surprised many, not least because Baum learned on July 3 that his kidney cancer, which was originally diagnosed in 2010, has returned and spread to his lymph nodes. He has been undergoing treatment at the Anschutz Medical Campus of the University of Colorado at Denver.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bryan Baum</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Baum said he was responding well to treatments, an immunotherapy that uses infusions of interleukin-2. He returned home from his most recent five-day round of treatment on Friday, the same day he decided to run again.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"I think I could bring some really good leadership in a time we need it," Baum said. "I feel like I did that before and I'm determined to do it again."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He is a senior wealth manager for Baum & Blockhus Wealth Management Services, a firm he owns. He and his wife, Stephanie, have two children, Chase and Brooklynn.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Baum first won election in 2009, defeating single-term mayor Roger Lange. During his two years, the City Council settled several open lawsuits -- including a "border war" with the neighboring town of Firestone -- and waded into a number of high-profile issues, including the banning of medical marijuana dispensaries and the elimination of an affordable housing requirement for residential developments.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The two years also continued a trend of periodic clashes between council factions, including a number between Baum and then-Councilman Sean McCoy. Both were defeated when they sought re-election in 2011, with the mayoral race lingering for three days before Coombs was declared the winner.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Baum said that once again, the city has several lawsuits that need settling, including one by the state over Longmont's oil and gas regulations.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"I don't know why we're still fighting that (regulations) lawsuit when we just voted fracking out of our city," said Baum, one of seven former mayors who opposed the city's ban of hydraulic fracturing.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Now that the ban is in the charter, he said, supporting it needs to be the council's priority.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The citizens told us, and that's where our attention needs to be," he said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He also said he was concerned about the use of tax-increment financing, rather than municipal bonds, to support the redevelopment of the Twin Peaks Mall and that other methods might have given the mall "more of an onus to perform." At the same time, Baum said, the city had to be careful not to stretch its bond capacity too far -- though a bond issue to support the rollout of a citywide fiber-optic network would be justified.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Something like that, which will make us money, is something we need to have," he said. "But some of these other things are hit-and-miss. We need to look at how we're leveraging our future"</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Scott Rochat can be reached at 303-684-5220 or srochat@times-call.com.</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://web.archive.org/web/<b>2014</b>0915064009/http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_25567240/<b>colorado-oil-drilling-boom-intensifies-voter-initiatives-multiply</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colorado Attorney General John Suthers was walking down Denver's 16th Street Mall recently when a Greenpeace activist asked if he'd like to ban fracking.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It reflected the intensifying battle over how to balance public demands for a pristine environment and health versus ramped-up production of fossil fuels.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Front Range residents have proposed 17 state ballot measures to bolster local control over drilling, short of a statewide ban, and are drawing support from at least one Internet-made multi-millionaire — U.S. Rep. Jared Polis. Coloradans for Local Control campaign adviser Rick Ridder said national groups also will join the fray, fighting the industry's<b> Colorado Oil and Gas Association and Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development</b>. CRED</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Suthers concluded that "we are, in fact, the ground zero" in the national debate. "There's going to be more and more discussion about the local government-state tension" in regulating industry expansion, he said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And this week in Denver, Suthers is hosting a first summit of states' chief law enforcement officers to address challenges as the expansion outpaces existing rules.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among experts called for the forum, Colorado School of Mines petroleum geologist Steve Sonnenberg said he'll describe the scope of the boom. An area northeast of Denver holds 3 billion to 5 billion barrels of untapped oil, Sonnenberg said. While natural gas production is slowing, oil production in Colorado has set records — 63 million barrels in 2013, up from 49 million in 2012. "Now we're transforming back to an oil state," Sonnenberg said.</font></p><div class="articleEmbeddedAdBox" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; line-height: 22px; width: 336px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="articleAdHeader" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div id="dfp-EMBEDDED" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><div id="dfp-EMBEDDED_ad_container" style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For Suthers, the key question is just how far cities and towns can go to shield residents under current law, which establishes an overriding state interest in developing oil and gas. A state lawsuit against Longmont's limits — let alone local bans — has not been decided.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"If the court says Longmont is free to ban fracking ... that is an earth-shattering reversal by the court," Suthers said in a recent interview with The Denver Post.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet, in practice, Colorado's boom is so intense, with about 52,000 active wells, that companies increasingly negotiate — beyond state permitters — with local officials to craft compromises such as piling hay around equipment to muffle drilling near homes.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The 17 proposed ballot measures fall into two groups: one that would amend the constitution to allow tighter local control over oil and gas operations, and another that would require buffer zones statewide up to five times bigger than the 500-foot limit set by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If any voter initiative passes and gives locals power to prohibit owners of oil and gas from extracting it, "a huge consideration will be whether this will amount to a 'taking' of that property by the government," Colorado Municipal League attorney Geoff Wilson said. "If that's the case, a proposal to ban drilling may amount to a proposal that local taxpayers purchase all the affected mineral rights. That could easily make this popular political and policy choice a very expensive one for local taxpayers."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">COGA referred questions about industry funding of ballot initiatives to CRED, which said a<b> new group — Protecting Colorado's Environment Economy and Energy Independence</b> — has been formed with $2 million in industry funding to oppose any change in the state constitution on issues already addressed by existing state rules.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">COGA policy director Doug Flanders said companies "are focused on building rapport and working toward solutions with our communities and stakeholders. We will continue to do that — whatever is on the ballot."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-stretch: normal !important; line-height: 22.652px !important; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><i><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700,&nbsp;<a href="mailto:bfinley@denverpost.com" style="transition: 0.1s ease-out;">bfinley@denverpost.com</a>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140915064009/http://twitter.com/finleybruce" style="transition: 0.1s ease-out;">twitter.com/finleybruce</a></font></i></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/02/colorado-supreme-court-rules-state-law-trumps-local-bans-on-fracking/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled against Front Range cities’ push to limit oil and gas development near people Monday, saying state power to regulate the industry trumps local measures, which the court deemed “invalid and unenforceable.”</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2015/15SC668.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 52, 89); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; text-decoration: none;">court overturned Fort Collins’ five-year moratorium&nbsp;</a>on fracking within the city limits. Justices concluded it “operationally conflicts” with state law and therefore, under well-established principles, must be pre-empted by the state.</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> It also rejected&nbsp;<a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Court_Probation/Supreme_Court/Opinions/2015/15SC667.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 52, 89); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; text-decoration: none;">Longmont’s 2012 ban on fracking because</a>&nbsp;it “materially impedes” use of state power.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Court officials unveiled the rulings 144 days after&nbsp;<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_29223451/state-high-court-hears-cases-city-oil-and" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 52, 89); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; text-decoration: none;">justices heard arguments</a>&nbsp;— at a time of intensifying political controversy. Colorado has emerged as a leading oil and gas producer with more than 50,000 active oil and gas wells and more than 45,000&nbsp;<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_27618385/colorado-land-impact-oil-and-gas-boom-scars" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 52, 89); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; text-decoration: none;">inactive wells&nbsp;</a>where land must now be restored. And Colorado residents again are pushing ballot initiatives to establish stronger limits on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the industry’s current technique of injecting sand, millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep underground to accelerate extraction of oil and gas.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Industry groups advocate increased production.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The oil and gas industry is thrilled,” Colorado Petroleum Council director Tracee Bentley said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We feel as if the Colorado justices really understand this issue,” Bentley said. “This very well could mean that anti-oil and gas forces bring forth ballot initiatives. Oil and gas is ready to stand up for Colorado consumers and for Colorado’s place in the American energy renaissance.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Conservation Colorado director Pete Maysmith called the rulings disappointing.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We believe that good policy-making happens from the ground up and that local communities are best-suited to make decisions about what happens with oil and gas drilling within their borders. Local governments should have the ability to call a timeout on drilling in order to better understand its impacts and ensure safety and public health, just as they are allowed to do with other industries,” Maysmith said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We will continue to stand with the communities that are being dramatically impacted by oil and gas drilling. Their concerns have not gone away with today’s rulings,” he said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“These decisions also show that the oil and gas industry’s threats of litigation are a hammer that the industry has no qualms about wielding against local governments if they decide to engage in land use planning. In order to combat this hammer, local governments must be empowered with better tools to protect their citizens from heavy industrial drilling.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The rulings build on Colorado law that has given state authorities an overriding interest in orderly production of oil and gas. Under Colorado’s split estate legal system, ownership of underground minerals confers property rights.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">State lawmakers created the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to oversee industry operations.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_24298280/voters-four-colorado-cities-may-call-timeout-fracking" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 52, 89); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; text-decoration: none;">legal battles over state versus local power&nbsp;</a>arose after Longmont leaders in 2012 imposed rules for oil and gas activity. Colorado’s attorney general at the time,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/environment/ci_25567240/colorado-oil-drilling-boom-intensifies-voter-initiatives-multiply" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 52, 89); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; text-decoration: none;">John Suthers</a>, sued the city. And Longmont voters responded by banning fracking.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2013, Fort Collins voters passed a five-year moratorium on fracking inside city boundaries.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">State attorneys, joining the oil and gas industry, argued that state regulators should have the final say in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_25859469/oil-and-gas-industry-building-giant-walls-try" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 52, 89); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; text-decoration: none;">conflicts</a>&nbsp;over drilling and that the local measures negate this state power. Gov. John Hickenlooper and state officials contend county, city and town authorities, while they do have some power to guide land use, lack the power to regulate oil and gas.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On the other side, attorneys representing Fort Collins and Longmont argued that local measures enacted to shield residents did not prevent companies from producing.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Lower courts in Boulder and Larimer counties overturned the ban and moratorium. Longmont and Fort Collins pushed their cases to the Colorado Court of Appeals, asking it to restore the ban and moratorium. Last August, the appeals court asked the Colorado Supreme Court to rule.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The rulings Monday build on the 1992 Voss case where the court determined Colorado’s interest in oil and gas development was strong enough to override a municipal ban in Greeley. The Voss ruling did not totally pre-empt what local government can do without impeding state interests.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Supreme Court justices who heard arguments from Longmont and Fort Collins noted that law and industry technology have changed since 1992. The justices said they’d explore whether Colorado’s interest is “sufficiently dominating” and what test courts should use to decide.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Industry opponents said the high court rulings will bolster their ballot initiative campaigns.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“People are saying enough is enough and they don’t want fracking in their backyards,” Rocky Mountain Food and Water Watch director Lauren Petrie said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“This is going to give everybody more reason to go out and get these initiatives passed — so that we can restore our right to protect our air, land and water, our families and our health, from industrial activity.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 28px; vertical-align: baseline; box-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit;"><i style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or @finleybruce</font></i></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/us/with-ban-on-fracking-colorado-town-lands-in-thick-of-dispute.html" style="line-height: 26px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/us/with-ban-on-fracking-colorado-town-lands-in-thick-of-dispute.html</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="328" data-total-count="328" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LONGMONT, Colo. — This old farming town near the base of the Rocky Mountains has long been considered a conservative next-door neighbor to the ultraliberal college town of Boulder, a place bisected by the railroad and where middle-class families found a living at the vegetable cannery, sugar mill and Butterball turkey plant.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="309" data-total-count="637" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But this month, Longmont became the first town in Colorado to outlaw hydraulic fracturing, the oil-drilling practice commonly known as fracking. The ban has propelled Longmont to the fiercely contested forefront of the nation’s antifracking movement, inspiring other cities to push for similar prohibitions.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="96" data-total-count="733" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it has also set the city on a collision course with oil companies and the State of Colorado.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="213" data-total-count="946" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“People really didn’t think through this too well,” Mayor Dennis L. Coombs said, sounding weary at the prospect of an onslaught of lawsuits. “We are where we are. I guess you have to respect the people.”</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="368" data-total-count="1314" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a way, Longmont’s fracking ban is in a position similar to Colorado’s ballot measure legalizing small amounts of marijuana for recreational use. Both are lessons in the promise and peril of populism: both initiatives sailed through on Election Day despite opposition from the authorities, and both now face legal scrutiny and fights at all levels of government.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="304" data-total-count="1618" id="story-continues-1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, has warned Longmont residents that the ban is likely to mean a lawsuit from the state</b>, which insists that only it has the authority to regulate drilling. <b>Already this summer, Colorado&nbsp;<a href="http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_21193961" style="">sued</a>&nbsp;Longmont over earlier city rules that limit drilling near schools and homes.</b></font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="298" data-total-count="1916" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Local leaders are also bracing for more lawsuits as they tell energy companies they can no longer frack their wells — a process that involves injecting thousands of gallons of pressurized water, sand and chemicals deep into the earth to fissure the rock and extract the oil and gas locked inside.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="298" data-total-count="1916" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="284" data-total-count="4038" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When people learned of plans to sink wells in Longmont near the Union Reservoir and a playground and recreational area on the east end of town, a response began to coalesce: not here. Supporters said the state’s decision to sue over Longmont’s regulations stiffened their resolve.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="48" data-total-count="4086" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the start, the ban seemed like a doomed idea.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="307" data-total-count="4393" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The energy industry poured money and resources into fighting it, raising more than $500,000 to send out mailers and buy advertisements saying the ban would drive away businesses and incite expensive court battles. The major newspapers in Denver, Boulder and Longmont all urged voters to reject the proposal.</font></b></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="218" data-total-count="4611" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I had no idea we could upset an entire state government and a trillion-dollar industry,” said Michael Bellmont, an insurance agent who helped gather thousands of signatures and knocked on doors to persuade voters.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="210" data-total-count="4821" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Advocates of the ban focused less on climate change and environmental concerns than on hitting voters where they lived: Do you want oil wells venting near your backyard? Do you want drilling near your schools?</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="202" data-total-count="5023" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The industry said the arguments were based on fear-mongering, deception and antifracking hysteria, but they resonated with voters. The ban passed 60 percent to 40 percent, with broad bipartisan support.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="328" data-total-count="5351" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One recent afternoon, a few supporters who helped get the ban passed drove through town to visit some of the “red sites” — areas that had been leased for drilling, or could be in the future. They drove past public parks, open spaces and golf courses and stopped at the Union Reservoir, still and limpid under a cloudy sky.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" style="" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="270" data-total-count="5621" data-node-uid="1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There’s a swim beach, there’s sailing, and there will be eight well pads,” said Kaye Fissinger, a supporter of the ban, pointing out potential drilling sites in the distance. “You come out here to relax. You don’t come out here to have your air polluted.”</font></p></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">may 2016 nyt</font></div><div><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="239" data-total-count="239" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colorado’s Supreme Court on Monday struck down local government prohibitions on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, handing&nbsp;<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/oil-petroleum-and-gasoline/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="More articles about oil." class="meta-classifier" style="">oil</a>&nbsp;and gas companies a victory in a lengthy battle over energy production in the environmentally conscious state.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="190" data-total-count="429" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In separate&nbsp;<a href="https://www.courts.state.co.us/Courts/Supreme_Court/Case_Announcements/" style="">rulings</a>, the court said a moratorium in&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/us/%3Cb%3Ecolorado%3C/b%3E-cities-rejection-of-fracking-poses-political-test-for-natural-gas-industry.html" style="">Fort Collins&nbsp;</a>and a ban in<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/us/with-ban-on-fracking-colorado-town-lands-in-thick-of-dispute.html" style="">Longmont</a>&nbsp;were invalid because state law pre-empted them. A lower court had reached the same conclusion earlier.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="253" data-total-count="682" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two other cities and Boulder County have prohibitions on fracking that presumably are affected by the decisions. With oil and gas exploration in a slump nationwide, the short-term effect of the rulings in Colorado will be small, industry officials said.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="230" data-total-count="912" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But when the slump ends, activity in urban areas across the Front Range — the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains and Colorado’s most populous region, where oil and gas production is concentrated — could be significant.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="224" data-total-count="1136" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The land opened to exploration by Monday’s rulings is comparatively small. More significant, said experts on both sides of the conflict, is that the rulings shut down future efforts to stop fracking in local jurisdictions.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="231" data-total-count="1367" id="story-continues-1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association said the decisions go beyond prohibitions on oil and gas operations, preventing localities from imposing any rules on those operations that conflict with state laws and regulations.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="333" data-total-count="1700" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colorado’s regulation of oil and gas production is the most stringent in the nation, said Dan Haley, the association’s president. “This continues to protect citizens and continues to protect the water and air in Colorado, but allows our operators to develop natural resources that have been off-limits for a number of years.”</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="188" data-total-count="1888" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officials in Fort Collins and Longmont said they were disappointed by the rulings. Environmental groups said the rulings would give new momentum to efforts to force a statewide referendum.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="304" data-total-count="2192" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Supreme Court has approved signature-collecting efforts for three fracking-related ballot initiatives; the two most significant would effectively reinstate local control over fracking and other activities, and outlaw fracking within 2,500 feet of occupied buildings, waterways and public open spaces.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="354" data-total-count="2546" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Supporters must gather nearly 100,000 signatures by August for each of the initiatives to place them on the November ballot. “I think this is definitely going to add fuel to the fire for folks to get out there and help get these initiatives passed,” said Lauren Petrie, a senior organizer at Food and Water Watch in Colorado, an opponent of fracking.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="177" data-total-count="2723" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Spurred by the rise of hydraulic fracturing, Colorado has become one of the nation’s largest producers of oil and gas. The state has more than 50,000 active oil and gas wells.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="349" data-total-count="3072" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental advocates say that the Front Range oil and gas boom has contributed significantly to an ozone haze that sometimes blankets the area, and that a coming report will show that well leaks of methane, a greenhouse gas, are common. They also argue that the chemicals used in fracking can leach into water and pose significant health hazards.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="174" data-total-count="3246" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. Haley, of the oil and gas association, said Colorado’s strict rules have led to a reduction in pollution from wells even as oil and gas production rose in recent years.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="391" data-total-count="3637" id="story-continues-2" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colorado is one of several states where the oil and gas industry has faced citizen-led efforts to ban fracking. New York has banned fracking statewide, and Pennsylvania has granted local government authority over hydraulic fracturing. The Texas Legislature responded last year to one city’s ban on fracking with a law that pre-empts local control over a broad range of drilling activities.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="155" data-total-count="3792" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gov. Jerry Brown of California came out against a fracking ban last year, but advocacy groups are waging a statewide campaign to place a ban on the ballot.</font></p><div class="flex-candidate" style="" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="196" data-total-count="3988" data-node-uid="1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s 2 to 2, and California’s still in play,” said Bruce Baizel, the energy program director for Earthworks, an environmental advocacy group that focuses on mining and energy exploration.</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="196" data-total-count="3988" data-node-uid="1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="196" data-total-count="3988" data-node-uid="1" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em 75px; line-height: 1.625rem;" times="times" new="new" roman="roman" serif="serif" max-width="max-width" none="none" width="width" px="px" color="color" rgb="rgb" background-color="background-color"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">From The Colorado Independent's John Tomasic. The state of Colorado has joined a lawsuit filed by oil-and-gas companies against the city of Longmon...</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>
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</div><div>Boulder City Council To Consider Fracking Ban</div><div>The Boulder Daily Camera | JOE RUBINO | Posted 08.03.2013 | Denver</div><div>Read More: Colorado Fracking, Boulder News, Fracking, Boulder Fracking Moratorium, Longmont Fracking Ban, Boulder Fracking Ban, Hydraulic Fracturing, Boulder Colorado, Denver News</div><div>
</div><div>Boulder's leaders listened with great interest last week, when at a joint meeting of community officials, Longmont's city attorney gave an update on t...</div><div>
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</div><div>Hickenlooper: I Drank Fracking Fluid</div><div>Posted 02.14.2013 | Denver</div><div>Read More: Colorado Fracking, Fracking Fluid, Environmental Protection Agency, Video, Colorado Drilling Regulations, John Hickenlooper Fracking, Denver News, Longmont Colorado Fracking, Hickenlooper Fracking, Longmont Fracking Ban, Hydraulic Fracturing, Colorado Oil and Gas, Denver News</div><div>
</div><div>Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has made no secret of his support for hydraulic fracturing, but on Tuesday he went one big step further and testif...</div><div style="">
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</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>WTP, which has since changed its name to American Tradition Partnership</b> (</span><em style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">logo above</em><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">),&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.americantradition.org/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">describes</a>&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">itself as a "no-compromise grassroots organization dedicated to fighting the radical environmentalist agenda." It was first registered as a Colorado nonprofit in 2008 by Scott Shires, a Republican operative with a checkered past: He was&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2010/02/12/who-benefited-from-outside-influence/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">fined</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;over $7,000 for campaign finance violations in Colorado, pleaded guilty in a&nbsp;</span><a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/05/jury_returns_conviction_in_cas_1.php" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">scheme</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;to fraudulently obtain federal grants for developing alternative fuels, and was&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.denverpost.com/newsheadlines/ci_11882167" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">tied</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;to an illegal gambling ring. WTP was&nbsp;</span><a href="http://coloradoindependent.com/50388/western-tradition-partnership-targets-salazar-on-alleged-monument-memo" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">active</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;on behalf of oil and gas industry interests in the 2008 commissioners race in Garfield County, a center of Colorado's energy industry.</span><br style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">Last year, the then-Western Tradition Partnership also backed a Colorado ballot initiative that would have allowed voters to opt out of the state’s&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.dora.state.co.us/puc/rulemaking/RenewableEnergyStandard.htm" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">renewable energy standard</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">, which requires 30%</span></span><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of the electricity produced by investor-owned utilities to come from renewable sources by 2030. WTP&nbsp;</span><a href="http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Renewable_Energy_Exemption_Initiative%282010%29" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">missed the filing deadline</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;to put the measure on the ballot, but ATI is picking up the slack:</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="line-height: 20.8px;"> The group has&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.atinstitute.org/ati-environmental-law-center-sues-state-of-colorado-over-unconstitutionality-of-rps-mandate/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">sued</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">&nbsp;Colorado over the standard, and is targeting similar renewable energy promotion programs in&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.atinstitute.org/ati-study-delawares-renewable-energy-mandate-will-damage-state-economy/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">Delaware</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.atinstitute.org/study-minnesota%e2%80%99s-renewable-energy-mandate-will-damage-state-economy-with-little-to-no-benefit-to-environment/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">Minnesota</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.atinstitute.org/ati-study-montana-renewables-mandate-is-all-cost-no-benefit/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">Montana</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.atinstitute.org/ati-study-new-mexico%e2%80%99s-renewable-energy-mandates-costly-with-questionable-benefits/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">New Mexico</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">&nbsp;and&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.atinstitute.org/study-ohio%e2%80%99s-alternative-energy-mandates-will-keep-its-economy-in-a-slump/" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">Ohio</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">.</span></span><br style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="line-height: 20.8px;"><b>The groups have not only been fighting on behalf of the energy industry: They’ve also been targeting laws that restrict corporate money in elections and that require disclosure of contributions.</b> In 2009, Western Tradition Partnership sued the city of Longmont, Colo. over their local Fair Campaign Practices Act. The city eventually&nbsp;</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tradition_Partnership#Longmont" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px;">settled the suit</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px;">&nbsp;and agreed to drop requirements that political donors have their identities disclosed on campaign advertisements</span></span><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><br style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">And in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010&nbsp;</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v.Federal_Election_Commission" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em>Citizens United</em>&nbsp;decision</a><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, <b>WTP&nbsp;</b></span><a href="http://coloradoindependent.com/64510/colorado-pro-business-group-gets-montana-corporate-campaign-spending-ban-struck-down-in-court" style="text-decoration: none; line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>successfully challenged</b></a><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;the constitutionality of the Montana Corrupt Practices Act of 1912</b>, which prohibited independent expenditures by corporations to influence political campaigns -- a law originally aimed at powerful mining and railroad interests in the state.</span></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 20.8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</span></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wiki</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><h3 style="margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; line-height: 1.6; background: none rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Longmont">Longmont</span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2009, ATP sued the city of&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longmont" title="Longmont" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Longmont</a>, Colorado, seeking to prevent enforcement of the <b>Longmont Fair Campaign Practices Act (LFCPA</b>). An injunction suspending enforcement of the regulations was granted in October 2009, after as Senior U.S. District Judge Walker Miller held that ATP and its co-plaintiffs would likely prevail.<sup id="cite_ref-Boulder_19-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tradition_Partnership#cite_note-Boulder-19" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[19]</a></sup>&nbsp;The LFCPA was revised in 2009 after a 2008 special election where a city council member received a $5,000 contribution from the Longmont Association of Realtors. <b>The 2009 changes mandated that contributors' identities, contribution amounts, and other information must be disclosed in campaign advertisements</b>.<sup id="cite_ref-Boulder_19-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tradition_Partnership#cite_note-Boulder-19" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[19]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.4px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The suit was settled out of court in December 2009 with the town paying the plaintiffs $68,500</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. As part of the settlement, the city agreed to propose changing the contested portions of the LFCPA, which were subsequently repealed by the city council.<sup id="cite_ref-timescall_20-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Tradition_Partnership#cite_note-timescall-20" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[20]</a></sup></span></font></p></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just over a year into office,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;<b>Colorado's Secretary of State Scott Gessler</b>&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">has likely made the headlines more than all previous Colorado secretaries combined.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Gessler&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/scott-gessler-colorado-secretary-mail-in-ballot_n_987424.html" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">raised eyebrows in</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 2011</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;when&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">he instructed county clerks not to mail ballots to registered (but inactive) citizens in their counties</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. He based his decision on a belief the practice allowed nearly 5,000 non-citizens to vote in Colorado's 2010 election - a figure&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-salzman/scott-gessler-voter-fraud_b_1316876.html" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">as-yet unsubstantiated and potentially closer to zero</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While some clerks fell in line and followed Gessler's directive, others didn't -- pointing out that Gessler's orders would prevent legitimate voters from participating, including members of the armed forces who hadn't been around to vote in 2010.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This all triggered a lawsuit, Pueblo County Clerk Bo Ortiz and Denver's Clerk Debra Johnson&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/29/scott-gessler-colorado-secretary-mail-in-ballot_n_987424.html" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">both ended up on Rachel Maddow</a>, and U.S. Representatives concluded Gessler's orders were "likely to disenfranchise eligible voters and should be condemned." Johnson and Ortiz won the suit and sent ballots to registered-inactive voters, but the larger issue of voter registration remained unsolved.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fast-forward a couple months to the middle of Colorado's legislative session. Rep. Don Coram, R-Montrose and Sen. Mike Johnston, D-Denver,</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;craft the bi-partisan&nbsp;</b><a href="http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS/CLICS2012A/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/F1DD56A0B82DDED187257981007E0FC9?Open&file=109_ren.pdf" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Senate Bill 12-109</a><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;to set standards for the proper maintenance of voter registration lists. Despite passing out of the Senate 24-10, the bill died Wednesday in a Republican-controlled House committee on a party-line vote.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Gessler had testified against the legislation.</span></b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Democrats hailed the bill's defeat as proof Gessler's interest isn't in voters having access to state-wide uniform ballots (as he claimed in the lawsuit), but in having control over who actually&nbsp;<em>gets</em>&nbsp;a ballot. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A press-release from state Democratic Party Chair Rick Palacio goes one step further, hinting at a recall effort:</span>
<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span></font></p><blockquote><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Colorado's Republican Leader Scott Gessler has once again prioritized his partisan agenda above the rights of Coloradans to vote. If Scott Gessler is unwilling to fulfill his duties as a non-partisan election officer, the people of Colorado should consider all avenues necessary to </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">remove him as<b>&nbsp;Secretary of State</b>.</span></font></blockquote><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is this an instance of election-year posturing, or do the Democrats really intend to attempt a recall? Regardless of the difficulty of such an undertaking,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.coloradopols.com/diary/17527/democrats-go-there-call-for-gesslers-removal-from-office" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Colorado Pols argues</a>&nbsp;"it's time to recognize how serious a threat to "small-d" democracy Gessler really is."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gessler's public information officer, Rich Coolidge,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20277003/colorado-democrats-call-remove-secretary-state-scott-gessler" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">declined to comment</a>&nbsp;on Palacio's statement to The Denver Post,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20277003/colorado-democrats-call-remove-secretary-state-scott-gessler" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">labeling it</a>&nbsp;"vitriol from the left."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Either way, we're inclined to agree with Bob Loevy, a political science professor emeritus at Colorado College. “Getting sued is very much part of the job,”&nbsp;<a href="http://www.5280.com/magazine/2012/04/scott-gessler?page=0,1" target="hplink" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">he told 5280 in their April 2012 feature on Gessler</a>. “And both political parties in Colorado have become very litigious. There’s much more readiness on the part of the political parties to sue and see if the court will find things to their liking.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=7767089 404&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=7767089</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Colorado's top election official is using state money to prevent registered Coloradans from voting. Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s fight with Denver County over mailing ballots to registered voters who missed 1 general election is not over yet.&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />On October 7<sup style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">th</sup>&nbsp;a Denver judge allowed Denver County to mail ballots to its residents who&nbsp;are marked ‘inactive – fail to vote’ because they did not vote in the last general election.&nbsp; Since the court ruling&nbsp;9 additional counties have decided to mail ballots to these so<span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">-</span>called inactive voters.&nbsp; &nbsp;<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Secretary Gessler argues that the law prohibits counties from mailing to these voters.&nbsp; The reality is that the Colorado election code, particularly in mail ballot elections, demonstrates that the legislature intended to increase voter participation, not decrease participation in Colorado elections.<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Colorado Common Cause has asked to join this case because making it more difficult for Coloradans to vote violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to U.S. Constitution in addition to Article 2, Sections 5 and 10 of the Colorado Constitution.</strong></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</strong></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 12pt; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CCC’s motion to intervene says that Gessler’s actions would violate the free speech and equal protection guaranteed in the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Colorado Constitution also guarantees political expression and an eligible elector’s right to vote.&nbsp; On November 16, 2011, Denver District Court Judge Brian Whitney granted Colorado Common Cause's request to intervene in the case.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Filings and Documents</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/Inactive%20Voters%20Release%2011.16.11.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Press Release: Colorado Common Cause Granted Intervenor Status in Gessler v Johnson</a>&nbsp;(November 16, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/Inactive%20Voters%20Press%20Release%2010%205%202011.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Press Release: Colorado Common Cause Files to Intervene in Gessler v. Denver</a>&nbsp;(October 5, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/Intervention%2011.16.11.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Ruling on CCC Motion to Intervene</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/CCC%20Motion%20to%20Intervene.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Colorado Common Cause Motion to Intervene</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/CCC%20Answer%20and%20Counterclaims.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Colorado Common Cause Answer and Counterclaims</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/gessler%2092111.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of State Gessler Complaint</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/denverclerkpi.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Secretary of State Gessler Motion for Preliminary Injunction</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/Defendant's%20Response.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Denver County Clerk and Recorder Response in Opposition to Motion for Preliminary Injunction</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/Pueblo%20-%20Military%20Ballot%20SOS%20Letter.pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Pueblo County Clerk and Recorder Letter to Secretary Gessler</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/110927%20-%20Letter%20to%20AAG%20Perez%20re%20%20Colorado%20(2).pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">U.S. House of Representatives Letter to U.S. Department of Justice</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/110927%20-%20Letter%20to%20AAG%20Perez%20re%20%20Colorado%20(2).pdf" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/Amicus%20Brief%20in%20Opposition%20to%20Motion%20for%20PI.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Amicus Brief in Opposition to Motion for Preliminary Injunction on behalf of Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and Urban League of Metropolitan Denver</font></a></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7BFB3C17E2-CDD1-4DF6-92BE-BD4429893665%7D/Gessler%20-%20Motion%20for%20Leave%20to%20File%20Amicus%20Curiae%20Brief.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Motion to File Amicus Brief</a>&nbsp;<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><h6 style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 6px; padding: 10px 0px 6px 3px; background: url(" web="web" http="http" www.kintera.org="www.kintera.org" atf="atf" cf="cf" bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665="Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665" d="D" bg_8.gif="bg_8.gif" px="px" repeat-x="repeat-x" rgb="rgb"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Media Coverage</font></h6><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Denver Post</font></em></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Editorial:&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_19108656" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Goal should be to activate Colorado's inactive voters</a>&nbsp;(October 16, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_18991787" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Congressmen ask U.S. to look into Gessler lawsuit against Denver clerk</a>&nbsp;(September 18, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_18948414" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Editorial: Hindering valid votes in Denver</a>&nbsp;(September 22, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.denverpost.com/littwin/ci_18948419?source=rss" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Littwin: Now is the time for the dunk tank</a>&nbsp;(September 22, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.denverpost.com/brown/ci_19058288" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Brown: Guessing at Gessler's Motives</a>&nbsp;(October 7, 2011)<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Pueblo Chieftain</font></em></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Editorial:&nbsp;<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.chieftain.com/opinion/editorials/a-loss-for-now/article_a8217d58-f6c8-11e0-b678-001cc4c002e0.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">A loss for Now</a>&nbsp;(October 16, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/secretary-of-state-sues-denver-over-mail-ballots/article_1a692062-e4d3-11e0-88e4-001cc4c002e0.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Secretary of state sues Denver over mail ballots</a>&nbsp;(September 22, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.chieftain.com/news/local/crowd-gathering-for-court-battle-over-inactive-voters/article_bc38e124-f0af-11e0-828c-001cc4c002e0.html" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Crowd Gathering Over Court Battle on Inactive Voters</a>&nbsp;(October 7, 2011)<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Colorado Independent</em></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://coloradoindependent.com/100229/gessler-lawsuit-launched-against-denver-county-sounds-voter-suppression-alarm-bells" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Gessler lawsuit launched against Denver County sounds voter-suppression alarm bells</a>&nbsp;(September 22, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://coloradoindependent.com/101726/scott-gessler-is-making-a-name-for-himself" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Scott Gessler is making a name for himself</a>&nbsp;(October 6, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://coloradoindependent.com/101827/paid-sick-days-gessler-voter-suppression-effort" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Paid Sick Days campaign 'outraged' by Gessler lawsuit against Denver</a>&nbsp;(October 7, 2011)<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">The Boulder Daily Camera</em><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_19048011" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Don't Get Out the Vote: Secretary of State working against Colorado Voters</a>&nbsp;(October 6, 2011)<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></font></em></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Westword</font></em></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121116084457/http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/10/rachel_maddow_scott_gessler_lawsuit_denver.php" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; outline: none;">Rachel Maddow takes on Scott Gessler over voting lawsuit against Denver (VIDEO)</a>&nbsp;(October 5, 2011)</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scott Gessler, Republican candidate for Colorado Secretary of State</font></b></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scott Gessler, the Republican Party’s ever-so-slick choice to run for Secretary of State this November has a dossier that only an authoritarian father-party could love.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While moaning and groaning, ranting and raving, over the influence of&nbsp;<strong>soft (527) money</strong>, he is up to his neck inside these organizations.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 527 designation applies to political organizations that have&nbsp;<em>tax-exempt status</em>&nbsp;under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Service code.&nbsp; They are organized and operated “primarily for the purpose of directly or indirectly accepting contributions or making expenditures” with the intent of influencing the “selection, nomination, election, or appointment of any individual to Federal, State, or local public office or office in a political organization, or the election of Presidential electors.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gessler’s group,&nbsp;<strong>Coloradans for Change&nbsp;</strong>is a 527 that took at least one massive donation of $125,000 from the&nbsp;<a target="blank" href="http://www.coloradoforethics.com/node/26776" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><strong>Senate Majority Fund</strong>&nbsp;and another donation of $100,872 from the&nbsp;<strong>Colorado Leadership Fund</strong></a>.&nbsp; Both groups were defendants in a lawsuit by&nbsp;<strong>Colorado Ethics Watch</strong>&nbsp;for sponsoring unethical campaign ads and skirting campaign finance laws.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Money, however, appears to flow both ways with some of these 527s.&nbsp; On two occasions funds flowed from Coloradans for Change to the Colorado Leadership Fund, in one instance for $46,125.&nbsp; Might this be a case of “political money laundering” or are we merely talking about political incest?&nbsp; And where Scott Gessler is concerned, there’s certainly a lot of the latter going on.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gessler is also the man behind the curtain for&nbsp;<strong>Colorado Conservative Voters</strong>, a 527 whose purpose is “to education Colorado citizens about issues, officeholders, and political candidates that further conservative values.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And if all this 527 hypocrisy isn’t enough, he’s rubbing questionable elbows with a guy named Scott Shires, also connected to Coloradans for Change and the Senate Majority Fund.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shires,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> along with Scott Gessler, is also listed as&nbsp;</span><a target="blank" href="http://www.freerangelongmont.com/2010/02/12/who-benefited-from-outside-influence/" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Western Tradition Partnership</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">’s registered agent. &nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Western Tradition Partnership is registered with the IRS as a nonprofit</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;501c4. According to Luis Toro, general counsel for Colorado Ethics Watch, these nonprofit groups have come to replace 527 organizations as the favored shell for political contributions.&nbsp; They became popular after 527s faced greater disclosure requirements at the state and national level.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Gessler joined this shell game with&nbsp;<a target="blank" href="http://www.coloradoforethics.org/node/26817" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none;">Western Skies Coalition and Coloradans for Economic Growth</a>, both of which have had complaints filed with the IRS</b>&nbsp;presenting evidence that these organizations might have spent more of their total resources on actions that influence elections in Colorado rather than on social welfare activities, in violation of their federal tax-exempt status.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Shires, the Republican operative and front man for many 527s, has a history of violating campaign reporting regulations.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp; Shires has also been indicted on an alleged money laundering scheme to hide an illegal gambling operation.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scott Shires is behind yet anothe<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">r 527, the&nbsp;<strong>Colorado League of Taxpayers</strong>&nbsp;who attacked&nbsp;<b>Longmont&nbsp;</b>council candidate <b>Richard Juday</b> in a January 2008 maile</span>r.&nbsp; A similar event occurred in Garfield County.&nbsp; Colorado Ethics Watch sued Shires for campaign violations in that case and he was fined in excess of $7,000.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So these two “Scotts” are joined at the political hips.&nbsp; Both Republican operatives.&nbsp; Both of whom appear to have never met an election law for which they didn’t have contempt.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Flying further under the radar are Gessler’s other political bedfellows.&nbsp; He’s allied with&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><strong>Coalition for a Conservative Majority</strong>&nbsp;(founded by&nbsp;</span><strong><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Tom DeLay,</span>&nbsp;</strong>who has been indicted on felony conspiracy and money-laundering charges) and he is a frequent “guest” at rightwing reactionary groups, such as the&nbsp;Tea Party.[santos?]</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scott Gessler has the political gall to think we should make him Colorado’s next Secretary of State, the position that guarantees the security and legitimacy of our elections.&nbsp;&nbsp; No way, Mr. Gessler.&nbsp; You aren’t qualified.&nbsp; It’s a matter of&nbsp;<em>trust</em>.&nbsp; It’s a matter of&nbsp;<em>common sense</em>.&nbsp; It’s a matter of&nbsp;<em>integrity</em></font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><em><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></em></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><h1 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Tradition Partnership again targets Longmont</font></h1><div class="meta"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">October 22, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2011</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By&nbsp;<a href="http://www.freerangelongmont.com/author/kayefissinger/" title="Posts by Kaye Fissinger" rel="author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Kaye Fissinger</a></font></p></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>With now-Secretary of State Scott Gessler as lead attorney, in 2009 Western Tradition Partnership filed suit against Longmont’s Fair Campaign Practices Act</b>.&nbsp; Western Tradition Partnership also funded the Longmont Leadership Committee who conducted a political campaign that unabashedly lied in order to oust certain council members in 2009 and replace them with members who would promote their radical agenda and who would consistently vote their rabid anti-environmentalism and their absolutism on property rights.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>After Bryan Baum, mayor, and his majority won the 2009 election, they directed that the Campaign Practices Act lawsuit be settled, and&nbsp;Gessler was paid $68,500.</b>&nbsp;&nbsp;Following that the Campaign Practices Act had much, if not most, of its transparency removed.&nbsp; Only 19 words were changed because of the lawsuit.&nbsp; The rest of the changes were instituted because the Baum majority wanted those changes.<b>&nbsp; They were dutifully following the Republican playbook which opposes campaign contribution restrictions and transparency.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Western Tradition Partnership renamed itself American Tradition Partnership.&nbsp; Even though they are a 501c4 and can’t officially endorse candidates, they&nbsp;have thus far&nbsp;sent out<b> two mailers — one that essentially endorses Bryan Baum and Heath Carroll (at-large) and the other against Sean McCoy and Sarah Levison</b>.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Contrary to the assertion in the mailer, American Tradition Partnership is NOT a local organization.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp; They were organized first in the state of Montana by two Republican state legislators.&nbsp; They later registered in Colorado.&nbsp; However, I have no doubt that there are members of our community, who have had and likely will have business before the city, who have chosen this avenue to contribute sums in excess of the $200/per person candidate campaign limit and to keep those contributions secret.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under their previous name, Western (now American) Tradition Partnership was taken before the Montana Political Practices Commission for their campaign practices and attacks against Democratic candidates in Montana for the same practices that WTP used in Longmont in 2009 through the Longmont Leadership Committee.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://politicalpractices.mt.gov/content/2recentdecisions/GraybillvWTPandCoalitionforEnergyandEnvironmentDecision" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Montana Political Practices Commission in its ruling effectively called the organization “corrupt.”&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;The Commission heard testimony from a former employee of Western Tradition Partnership that indicated that the organization promotes itself by telling contributors that their identities will never be known and that some of&nbsp;WTP’s&nbsp;contributions had origins in foreign countries, a violation of U.S. law.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why all the interest in Longmont from an organization such as American Tradition Partnership?</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In <b>Western Tradition Partnership’s 2008 &nbsp;IRS “990” filing , Western Tradition Partnership had $665,725 in contributions</b>.&nbsp; That was their first year in existence and the only documentation located to date.&nbsp; These contributions clearly come from the<b> oil, gas and coal industries</b> whose interests are the first priorities of Western/American Tradition Partnership and ultimately motivate other political activities.</font></span></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4"><b>During the first decade of the 21</b>^<b>st</b><b>&nbsp;century, Colorado’s state government shifted Democratic after a long history of being Republican.&nbsp; This change did not facilitate the interests of American Tradition Partnership.&nbsp; Longmont, a community that Republicans had consistently counted on as a Republican stronghold, was moving Democratic as well.&nbsp; In order for Republicans to retake control of state government, Longmont needed to be recaptured.</b></font></p><div id="attachment_7123" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 160px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><p class="wp-caption-text" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TOP Operating Oil/Gas Drill Sites</font></p></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4">Because of advancements in oil and gas extraction technology, it is now possible to retrieve oil and gas that was previously uneconomical to recover.&nbsp; These techniques include directional and horizontal drilling and&nbsp;<b>hydraulic fracturing</b>.&nbsp; Colorado is among those states that have many of these deposits.&nbsp; The Wattenberg field is the 10^th&nbsp;largest gas field and 13^th&nbsp;largest oil field in the nation.&nbsp; It may come as a surprise that <b>some of these deposits are under property owned by the City of Longmont.&nbsp; At least 54 of the identified wells are at the edge of or under Union Reservoir itself!</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There is a confluence of interest between the supporters of American Tradition Partnership and the developers, builders and real estate interests in Longmont.&nbsp; And, of course, the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Baum majority has an unequivocal ideological alliance with both the anti-environmental and property rights positions of this radical organization.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Citizens and voters of Longmont are losing control of their community</b>.&nbsp; It has become a pawn in the political games, games by those with large sums of money at their disposal and who will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals.&nbsp; Ignore what is happening in Longmont at your peril.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Technorati Tags:&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/American+Tradition+Partnership" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">American Tradition Partnership</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Bryan+Baum" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Bryan Baum</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/longmont" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">longmont</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/longmont+politics" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">longmont politics</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/oil+and+gas+drilling+at+Union+Reservoir" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">oil and gas drilling at Union Reservoir</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/TOP+Operating" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">TOP Operating</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/union+reservoir" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">union reservoir</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Wattenberg+Field" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Wattenberg Field</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Western+Tradition+Partnership" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Western Tradition Partnership</a></font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
&nbsp;</font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.freerangelongmont.com/<b>2011/</b>10/22/american-tradition-partnership-targets-longmont/</font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
&nbsp;</font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>local fracking ordinance:</b></font></p><h1 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our Longmont, others act to protect fracking ban</font></h1><div class="meta"><div class="date"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">March 12, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2013</span></font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By&nbsp;<a href="http://www.freerangelongmont.com/author/kayefissinger/" title="Posts by Kaye Fissinger" rel="author" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Kaye Fissinger</a></font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 11, 2013</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CONTACTS:
Kaye Fissinger, 303-678-7267 (Our Longmont)
Michael Bellmont, 303-678-9470 (Our Longmont)
Bruce Baizel, 970-903-5326 (Earthworks)
Shane Davis, 303-717-4462 (Sierra Club)
Sam Schabacker, 720-295-1036 (Food & Water Watch)</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coalition Acts to Protect City of Longmont’s Ban on Dangerous Hydraulic Fracturing</font></strong></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">LONGMONT, CO – Today, a coalition of community, public health, consumer and environmental organizations filed a motion in the Weld County District Court to intervene in the&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Colorado Oil and Gas Association’s lawsuit </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">that seeks to invalidate Longmont’s ban of the oil and gas practice known as “fracking”</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and related surface activities, such as storage of toxic post-fracking fluids. This ban was instituted by the citizens of Longmont in an amendment to the City Charter, Article XVI , the Longmont Public Health, Safety and Wellness Act.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The people of Longmont by an overwhelming vote of 60% (more than 25,000 people), voted in the November, 2012 election to amend the City Charter to ban fracking,</b>&nbsp;affirming their intention “to protect themselves from the harms associated with hydraulic fracturing, including threats to public health and safety, property damage and diminished property values, poor air quality, destruction of landscape, and pollution of drinking and surface water.” This historic ballot measure was spearheaded by Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont (Our Longmont).</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We are taking this action because we hope to affirm the rights of citizens and communities to guarantee a safe and healthy environment for themselves and future generations,” said Michael Harris, Director of the University Of Denver Sturm College Of Law Environmental Law Clinic. He continued, “We are honored to represent Our Longmont, Food & Water Watch, the Sierra Club and Earthworks.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Colorado Constitution confers on all individuals certain inalienable rights. These rights are expressed in the Colorado Oil and Gas Act, which requires that oil and gas resources be extracted in a “manner consistent with the protection of public health, safety and welfare.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The extraction process of hydraulic fracturing has not been proven to be safe,” said Kaye Fissinger, managing member of Our Longmont. “Further, the State of Colorado has created a situation where the commission that oversees the oil and gas industry has an inherent conflict of interest. It cannot simultaneously foster the development of oil and gas and protect the health, safety and welfare of the citizens.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The dangerous, toxic practice of fracking has been a matter of grave importance to the people of Longmont since October of 2011,” said Michael Bellmont, spokesperson for Our Longmont. “To assure the protection of those in our community, Our Longmont undertook a petition drive to place the charter amendment on the ballot. In November, our citizens exercised their rights to self-determination, also guaranteed under Article XX of Colorado’s Constitution. In light of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association’s attack, it is necessary that citizens participate in the judicial process to guarantee our constitutionally protected rights. It is for this reason Our Longmont and others have moved to intervene,” Bellmont said.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Food & Water Watch provided invaluable assistance to Our Longmont </b>throughout the effort to qualify and pass Longmont’s charter amendment. Sam Schabacker, Mountain West Regional Director for the organization, said, “We were delighted to be able to help the citizens of Longmont prohibit the dangerous industrial practice of hydraulic fracking and are pleased to be able to continue to support them. We have every confidence that the courts will reject the claims of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association and preserve Longmont’s constitutional and home rule rights.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Eric E. Huber, Senor Managing Attorney for the Sierra Club Environmental Law Program, “This lawsuit could have a precedential effect throughout Colorado as other communities work to pass similar prohibitions on fracking and the disposal of its waste products within their boundaries.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bruce Baizel, Director of Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project, said, “The citizens of Longmont took this action because they don’t trust state regulators to protect them. Rather than sue communities acting to protect their public health, industry and the state should be addressing legitimate community concerns by putting the public’s health before industry profits.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont</strong>, is a group of concerned citizens from throughout Longmont. We believe that Longmont has a constitutional right to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of our community. Our goal is to preserve the quality of life in our exceptional city. By so doing we will preserve our economic vitality, our home values, our water, parks, wildlife, lakes, trails, streams, open space, and recreational areas for ourselves and future generations. www.ourlongmont.org,</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">F<strong>ood & Water Watch</strong>&nbsp;is a consumer organization that advocates for common sense policies that will result in healthy, safe food and access to safe and affordable drinking water. It’s essential that these shared resources be regulated in the public interest rather than for private gain. www.foodandwaterwater.org,</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><strong>Sierra Club</strong>&nbsp;is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization with more than 2.1 million members and supporters nationwide, including 160 members in the City of Longmont. In addition to creating opportunities for people of all ages, levels and locations to have meaningful outdoor experiences, the Sierra Club works to safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying and litigation. http://rmc.sierraclub.org</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For 25 years,&nbsp;<strong>Earthworks</strong>&nbsp;has been dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the impacts of irresponsible mineral and energy development while seeking sustainable solutions. http://www.earthworksaction.org.</font></p><p class="technorati-tags" style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Technorati Tags:&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Bruce+Baizel" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Bruce Baizel</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/City+of+Longmont" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">City of Longmont</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Colorado+Constitution" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Colorado Constitution</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Colorado+Oil+and+Gas+Commmission" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Colorado Oil and Gas Commmission</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Denver+University+Environmental+Law+Clinic" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Denver University Environmental Law Clinic</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Earthwork%27s+Oil+and+Gas+Accountability+Project" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Earthwork's Oil and Gas Accountability Project</a>,<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Earthworks" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Earthworks</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Eric+E.+Huber" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Eric E. Huber</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Food+%26amp%3B+Water+Watch" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Food & Water Watch</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/fracking" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fracking</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/fracking+ban" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fracking ban</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/fracking+flowback" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fracking flowback</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/fracking+produced+water" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">fracking produced water</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/hydraulic+fracturing" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">hydraulic fracturing</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Kaye+Fissinger" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Kaye Fissinger</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/longmont" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">longmont</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+ballot+measure" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Longmont ballot measure</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+charter+amendment" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Longmont charter amendment</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+Charter+Amendment+Article+XVI" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Longmont Charter Amendment Article XVI</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+City+Charter" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Longmont City Charter</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+lawsuit" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Longmont lawsuit</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+lawsuit+intervenors" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Longmont lawsuit intervenors</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Longmont+Public+Halth+Safety+and+Wellness+Act" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Longmont Public Halth Safety and Wellness Act</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Michael+Bellmont" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Michael Bellmont</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Michael+Harris" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Michael Harris</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/oil+and+gas+drilling" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">oil and gas drilling</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/oil+and+gas+industry" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">oil and gas industry</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Our+Health+Our+Future+Our+Longmont" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Our Health Our Future Our Longmont</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sam+Schabacker" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Sam Schabacker</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Shane+Davis" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Shane Davis</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sierra+Club" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Sierra Club</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sierra+Club+Environmental+Law+Program" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Sierra Club Environmental Law Program</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sierra+Club+Rocky+Mountain+Chapter" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Sierra Club Rocky Mountain Chapter</a>,&nbsp;<a class="technorati-link" href="http://technorati.com/tag/Sturm+College+of+Law" rel="tag" target="self" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Sturm College of Law</a></font></p><div class="sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-official sd-sharing"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><span class="dateCreated" style="display: block; clear: both; margin-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 2px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Thursday, October 29,&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2009</span></font></span><h1 style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px; clear: both;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Montana-based org. pours cash into conservative coffers in Longmont City Council race</font></h1><h2 style="padding: 0px; margin: 0px;"><span class="author" style="font-weight: normal; display: block; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.boulderweekly.com/by-author-566-1.html" style="text-decoration: none; outline: none; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman" size="4">By Jefferson Dodge</font></a></span><div class="content" style="margin-top: 15px; line-height: 16px;"><div class="contentText"><div id="contentFont" class="font1"><div id="contentText" class="size1" style="line-height: 18px;"><p style="font-weight: normal;" /><p style="font-weight: normal;"><strong><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">‘Strong base of support’</font></strong></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Leis declined to identify the members of WTP’s board or give details on its membership, although he said it has a “strong base of support” in Longmont, numbering in the hundreds. He says the organization is not funded by any specialinterest groups or corporations. Leis says that while a handful of donors have given WTP more than $1,000, the average member donation is between $30 and $40. While it has been accused of dirty politics, he says, “We’ve never done anything underhanded.”</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="font-weight: normal;">In addition to its Bozeman, Mont., roots, WTP lists a post office box in Denver</span><span style="font-weight: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. It lists its physical address as Gessler’s firm, as does another “old guard” contributor to the Longmont race, “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Coloradans for Economic Growth</span><span style="font-weight: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">,”</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> which gave the organization “Longmont Citizens for a Brighter Future” $2,850 to support City Council candidate <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Alex Sammoury</span>. WTP’s Ferguson is based in Virginia, and the organization lists a Roanoke, Texas, office on its website as well. Leis, who says he is the only fulltime employee of the organization, is based in Fort Collins.</span> WTP’s director of communications, Brian Witt,<span style="font-weight: normal;"> whose phone number has a Montana area code, says he is no relation to Katie Witt.</span></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Katie Witt has raised $15,735, more than twice as much as Benker, not including the money that WTP and other groups have spent on the race. Several prominent Colorado Republicans contributed to Witt’s campaign, including former Boulder Mayor Bob Greenlee,</span> Colorado Christian University President and former U.S. Sen. William Armstrong<span style="font-weight: normal;">, Colorado Senate Minority Leader and gubernatorial candidate Josh Penry, Congressional candidate and state Rep. Cory Gardner, and Claudia Beauprez. Edward Lehman, publisher of the Times- Call, is also among Witt’s contributors.</span></font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The amounts contributed to the Benker-Witt race pale in comparison to the coffers o<b>f No Blank Check Longmont, formed to fight <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ballot question 2C, which would allow the city to offer its residents telecommunication, high-speed Internet and cable television services.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span>The group has raised $196,513, including a $150,000 gift from the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">For Benker’s part, she denies the rumor that she has been bankrolled by liberal groups ProgressNow and MoveOn.org. She says she has never received money from those two groups, although she acknowledges receiving advice and information from ProgressNow during her campaign two years ago.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Witt told Boulder Weekly that she had nothing to do with the WTP poll, and that she condemned it at a recent forum. Steve Monger, who is listed as the registered agent for the WTP-funded Longmont Leadership Committee, is listed among Witt’s contributors, but she says she hasn’t had any contact with him since the Boulder County Fair last summer, well before the poll was conducted.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“People give me money because they approve of what I do, not because I approve of what they do,” she says, adding that her reaction to the poll was, “Darn it, that’s too bad. I’m sorry that it offended people, but I had nothing to do with it.”</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Monger did not return calls for this story by press time. According to campaign expenditure reports, his group has spent most of the money it received from WTP on mailed anti-Benker materials and lobbying calls.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Witt says she does not know what WTP is or what it does. “I can tell you, I’m no sock puppet of the Western Tradition Partnership,” she says.</font></b></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Witt, who waged an unsuccessful Colorado Senate run last year, also denies claims that she is being groomed for bigger and better things in the Republican Party.</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“I think there’s more interest in this race because of the lack of leadership these last two years,” she says. “I think people see that things are off track. The Republican Party has nothing to do with this. I’m not a party hack. I just want what’s best for Longmont.”</font></p><p style="font-weight: normal;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">When informed about WTP and its funding of the poll and the Longmont Leadership Committee, Benker says, “I think there’s a shell game going on. I don’t think they can plead innocence.”...</font></p></div></div></div></div></h2></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">==</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>