Colorado pauses process to set rules for reducing ‘cumulative impacts’ from oil, gas operations

DENVER — By the end of April, Colorado’s top regulatory agency for the oil and gas industry was expected to finish up a yearslong process meant to define how the state can consider “cumulative impacts” when approving new oil and gas development. But that process is paused for now.

Colorado lawmakers first tasked the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) with making rules to evaluate and address cumulative impacts in 2019 – as part of the agency’s broad mission change from fostering the oil and gas industry to regulating it.

The intention is to better protect Coloradans’ health and the environment by looking at the bigger picture of existing pollution before allowing more oil and gas operations. But the complexity of creating new rules around cumulative impacts, while still enabling the oil and gas industry to operate, has led the commission to “kick the can down the road,” said Andrew Forkes-Gudmundson, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthworks.

“We’re trying to be a state that can have clean air, a vibrant economy, oil and gas, recreation and everything. And that’s a really hard balance to hold on to,” he said.

For almost five years, the commission has been looking into cumulative impacts and how to better regulate the oil and gas industry to mitigate those impacts. The commission released a draft of proposed rules in January that defined cumulative impacts as encompassing “impacts on air quality, water quality, the climate, noise, odor, wildlife, and biological resources.” The proposed rules would update the permitting process, increase coordination with state air pollution regulators and require oil and gas operators to engage more with the public about their drilling plans, among other changes.

“The state doesn’t want to just say no. So, we have to find a process that looks at the big picture, takes a comprehensive view of the pollution problem, and says no to the things that have to be said no to,” Forkes-Gudmundson said.

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