No health problem in Colorado, right?
Yesterday the CO State Senate Appropriations Committee voted to shelve Sen. Ginal's (Ft. Collins) bill which would mandate the CO Dept of Public Health and Environment to conduct a wide-ranging study on the impacts gas and oil production have had on the health and quality of life in the urban counties north of Denver. Two Democrats from Denver and Brighton voted with the Republicans to kill the bill.
Drilling in our state has increased many times over the 32,000 wells we had in 2012, moved much closer to homes and schools, and is using methods very different such as fracking to produce oil and gas.
Business and mineral companies put the screws on the Committee, and Republicans said the Health Dept already could conduct such a study if it saw a need. Wonder why that hasn't been done? Couldn't be that they (and the governor) are afraid what a study would show? Or they might lose their seats if a study showed there was real reason to protect our children by enforcing regulations over gas and oil?
Maybe if enough of us put pressure on our legislators some of them might actually stand up to big, bad fossil fuels.
