setback buffer zone

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</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/Colorado-Targeted-by-Fossil-Fuel-Industry-Disinformation-Playbook.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/Colorado-Targeted-by-Fossil-Fuel-Industry-Disinformation-Playbook.pdf</a></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</b></div><div>Climate Deception Harms Communities’ Health</div><div>and Safety</div><div>www.ucsusa.org/resources/colorado-fossil-fuel-industry-disinformation</div><div>https://doi.org/10.47923/2021.14291</div><div>
</div><div><div>CONTENTS</div><div>Chapter 1 Deceiving the Public: The Disinformation Playbook 4</div><div>The Disinformation Playbook and Colorado Oil and Gas Operations 5</div><div>Chapter 2 Disinformation Tactic: The Fix 7</div><div>Lobbying to Weaken Public Health and Safety Protections and Enhance Fossil Fuel Profits 8</div><div>Overwhelming Public Voices to Thwart Ballot Initiatives 9</div><div>Table 1. An Example of How Industry Spending Overwhelms Health and Safety 10</div><div>Pitting Local Leaders Against the Health and Safety of Their Constituents 11</div><div>Influencing Public Policy Positions from Inside and Out 11</div><div><b>Using Proxy Groups to Confuse the Public and Undermine Support for Climate</b></div><div>Accountability Lawsuits 12</div><div>Chapter 3 Disinformation Tactic: The Diversion 13</div><div>Elevating Industry Interests Above Community Voices 13</div><div>Fabricating the Appearance of Local Support 14</div><div>Figure 1. Colorado’s Climate Disinformation Complex 15</div><div>Greenwashing Your Screens 16</div><div>Chapter 4 Disinformation Tactic: The Screen 18</div><div>Building Credibility by Hiding Behind Trusted State Institutions 18</div><div>Burnishing Industry’s Reputation through Association with Respected Nonprofits 19</div><div>Chapter 5 Disinformation Tactic: The Fake 21</div><div>Chapter 6 A Litany of Harms: Health and Safety 23</div><div>Cancer-Causing and Other Dangerous Chemicals in the Air and Water 24</div><div>Poor Air Quality 24</div><div>New Research Identifies Even More Dangerous Ozone Problems 25</div><div>Figure 2. Fossil Fuel Industry Emissions are Higher in High Racial-Minority Census</div><div>Tracts 26</div><div>Dangerous Inactive Wells 26</div><div>Climate Change Impacts 27</div><div>Chapter 7 A Litany of Harms: Economic 28</div><div>Bogus Complaints about High Taxes 28</div><div>Inflated Jobs Claims 28</div><div>Union of Concerned Scientists | 3</div><div>Figure 3. Oil and Gas Extraction’s Boom-and-Bust Contribution to the Colorado</div><div>Economy 29</div><div>Other Harms, Some Difficult To Monetize 29</div><div>Chapter 8 Recommendations 31</div><div>Acknowledgments 32</div></div><div>
</div><div>...For more than a decade, Colorado oil and gas exploration and development have intensified, often putting dangerous and polluting industrial activities in close proximity to homes, schools, playgrounds, and other public spaces. This report exposes how the fossil fuel industry positions itself as the backbone of the state economy, often framing any community opposition to this industry’s dangerous operations as a fight against local interest in the form of tax revenue, school funding, and jobs. The industry largely glosses over evidence it causes health, economic, or environmental damage, and its clout enables oil and gas extraction and expansion to continue with little regard for those facing the adverse health and economic impacts. <b>In Colorado, the oil and gas industry is comprised of powerful transnational corporations, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, along with companies such as Noble Energy (now owned by Chevron), Anadarko (now owned by Occidental Petroleum), and Suncor (a large Canadian tar-sands operation with close ties to ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell</b>). </div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The industry’s interests are represented by heavyweight national lobbying outfits like the <b>American Petroleum Institute (API)</b>, as well as local trade associations, like the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA).</span> A proliferation of industry-created and backed front groups includes several with ties to the private multinational conglomerate <b>Koch Industries. </b>They often all work together to run the same Disinformation Playbook. Of course, the fossil fuel industry uses similar tactics and wields considerable political clout in other oil- and gas-producing states and at the federal level. Consider its success in stalling any meaningful climate action for more than two decades and its ability to despoil public and Native lands and waters with drilling and pipelines. Or consider the API’s nationwide TV and digital ad campaign, launched ahead of the 2020 elections and targeting not only Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and other key oil- and gas-producing states but also Wisconsin, Michigan, and other political swing states (API 2020a; API 2020b)....</div><div>
</div><div>Lobbying to Weaken Public Health and Safety Protections and Enhance Fossil Fuel Profits </div><div>
</div><div>In the early years of fracking in Colorado, API and its local division, the Colorado Petroleum Council (CPC), pushed the state legislature to enact the little-known ad valorem tax credit, which allows oil and gas companies to deduct local property taxes from the severance tax that fossil fuel companies must pay to the state. As local property taxes have increased, particularly for oil and gas operations, the state’s pool of severance taxes, based on production and profits, has shrunk—even though severance-tax revenues are needed to remediate abandoned and orphaned wells. Such wells are often underground pathways through which toxic fluids and gases migrate upward into air, water, and homes. These wells are also a significant source of leaked methane, a heat-trapping pollutant that has 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere (Bushkin-Bedient et al. 2020). </div><div>
</div><div>Thanks to the ad valorem tax credit, some oil and gas operations have paid nothing to the state in recent years, leaving old wells unremediated and dangerous to residents (Eason 2020; Legislative Council Staff, n.d.; Silbaugh 2020). In April 2017, a house in Firestone, Colorado blew up, killing two residents and seriously injuring a third. The explosion was traced to gas leaking from an old well that had not been disconnected from the wellhead or properly capped (Markus 2018; Osher 2017; Svaldi and Finley 2017).<b> In direct response to the explosion, the legislature took up a science-based bill to require regulators to map oil and gas pipelines throughout the state; a filibuster in the Republican-controlled state Senate killed the proposal.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Lobbying disclosure reports and campaign-finance records showed that Anadarko and Noble Energy, both of which opposed the bill, spent significantly in support of Senate Republican candidates in the 2016 election as well as to directly lobby against the bill </span>(Osher 2017; Sirota 2017).</div><div>
</div><div> Also in April 2017, the legislature considered a bill mandating that new oil and gas facilities be set back a certain distance from school property. Such a policy is intended to reduce children’s exposure to toxic releases by keeping them a safer distance from potential explosions. By a one-vote margin along party lines, a Senate committee killed the bill to establish a buffer zone separating oil and gas wells and associated facilities from occupied buildings and property lines. COGA, CPC, and other industry representatives led the opposition, arguing that “energy is the cornerstone of [the state’s] prosperity” (Glick and Ray 2017)—overstating the industry’s economic importance while ignoring the value of keeping children safe. An investigative report put oil and gas industry clout into some perspective: “Most of the people who testified in favor of the school setback bill were residents. . . . Virtually all who opposed it were paid lobbyists, most from industry associations” (Glick and Ray 2017). </div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">With the passage of Senate Bill 181 in 2019, the state got serious about tightening health and safety controls on the oil and gas industry. The industry, which aggressively opposed the bill, lobbied successfully for a late language change that weakened the ability of local governments to protect public health and safety. At the behest of industry lobbyists, the terms “necessary Union of Concerned Scientists | 9 and reasonable” were added as qualifiers to the bill’s text, potentially limiting the ability of cities and counties to require new protective measures </span>(Bloom 2019)....</div><div>
</div><div><b>Overwhelming Public Voices to Thwart Ballot Initiatives </b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In 2016, aggressive campaigns by <b>Protect Colorado and Coloradans for Responsible Energy Development (CRED</b>)—front groups funded by <b>API,</b> CPC, Noble Energy, and Occidental Petroleum—prevented two grassroots-driven ballot measures from getting in front of voters</span> (Dyer 2016a). <b>One measure would have increased local control over oil and gas expansion, with the aim of putting science at the forefront of decision-making on siting, reporting, and safety requirements designed to protect the communities. </b></div><div>
</div><div><b>The other measure would have improved community health and safety by requiring fracking operations be set back 2,500 feet from any occupied structure (homes, schools, businesses) or “areas of concern” (drinking water sources, lakes, parks).</b> The current scientific consensus is that a setback of 2,000 to 2,500 feet is needed to protect health and safety, especially that of children (Lewis, Greiner, and Union of Concerned Scientists | 10 Brown 2018; Milton et al. 2014; McKenzie et al. 2012). The setback would have reduced exposure to air and water pollution, lessened noise pollution, and kept children further from potential explosions. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Opponents outraised proponents by a ratio of 24–1, with 99.9 percent of the opponents’ nearly $17 million total coming from energy industry companies or front groups; their campaign drowned out the public health and safety arguments at the heart of initiative </span>(Table 1) (Blake 2016; Claypool 2016)....</div><div>
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</div><div>,,,<b>Protect Colorado repeated the play again two years later, in 2018, spending almost $40 million to oppose Proposition 112 (</b>Sirota and Woodruff 2018b), <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">which would have required new oil and gas development projects to be set back 2,500 feet from occupied buildings and other areas of concern. In addition to donating millions of dollars to Protect Colorado PAC to oppose Proposition 112, Noble Energy directly funded spots on at least 12 TV stations in the month before the election </span>(Sirota and Woodruff 2018b). One ad explicitly told voters: “When you vote, we need your support to stop Proposition 112, so we can continue producing the n<b>atural gas and oil that power our daily lives.” </b></div><div>
</div><div>This ad ignored the initiative’s health and safety intent, instead advancing a bogus economic argument that stronger protective measures would put the industry out of business (Sirota and Woodruff 2018a). <b>In 2020, the industry poured money into ad campaigns even with no initiatives on the ballot or legislation in the works. Protect Colorado spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a statewide online and TV ad campaign aimed at Governor Polis and the COGCC, threatening to challenge any new regulations, particularly on siting setbacks, that the industry deemed unreasonable </b>(Bunch 2020). The industry promoted 500-foot setbacks—about one-fourth the distance that scientists say is best to protect communities, especially vulnerable populations (Lewis, Greiner, and Brown 2018; Milton et al. 2014)....</div><div>[rev dr]</div><div>
</div><div><b>Using Proxy Groups to Confuse the Public and Undermine Support for Climate Accountability Lawsuits </b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">In 2018, Boulder and San Miguel counties and the city of Boulder sued ExxonMobil and Suncor, arguing that the companies violated state law by deceiving the public about the dangers of their fossil fuel products. These local governments are demanding that the companies pay their fair share of remediating climate damages accruing in their communities </span>(Boulder County, n.d.; City of Boulder, n.d.; EarthRights International, n.d.; San Miguel County, n.d.). </div><div>
</div><div><b>Almost immediately, ExxonMobil and Suncor launched a counteroffensive, using proxy groups to distort the public’s understanding of the case. </b>The defendants, falsely suggesting that the local governments were seeking a back-door path to achieve legislative goals, attempted to redirect attention away from the on-the-ground reality that communities face budget-busting expenses due to climate change-related fires, flooding, bad air quality, and extreme heat.<b> Industry PR companies, particularly Western Wire (an ExxonMobil executive serves on its board of directors) and <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Energy In Depth</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);"> (a project of the Independent Petroleum Association of America</span>), ramped up their substantial media buys to discredit the legal strategy (EarthRights International 2018). </div><div>
</div><div><b>Industry groups also attacked and attempted to discredit a public forum at the University of Colorado Law School on holding fossil fuel companies liable for climate change harms in the state</b> (MAP 2019; University of Colorado Law School 2019). <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Further, their representatives posed as journalists to try to interview plaintiff’s attorneys outside of appropriate court channels (EarthRights International</span> 2018; EarthRights International 2019). For more than three years, the defendants have used procedural tactics to keep this case—like other recent climate accountability complaints against fossil fuel companies—from being considered on its merits....</div><div>
</div><div>Chapter 3 Disinformation Tactic:</div></div>