Colorado Environmentalists Are Plotting To Undermine The State’s Economic Miracle

March 18, 2019

Colorado over the past decade has been an economic miracle. The state is swelling with new residents, attracted to the sunny weather and plentiful job opportunities. Much of this growth was due to an expanding energy industry that created high paying jobs.

Under former Governor John Hickenlooper, Colorado became the 5^th largest producer of natural gas, and fossil-fuel development now supports 233,000 jobs.

But politicians pushing an extreme environmentalist agenda are threatening to end this prosperity. They’re plotting to pass a bill, under the guise of public health and safety, that would be “a de facto prohibition on drilling,” according to the Washington Times. The bill advanced last week on a party-line vote, “sending the measure to the House and one step closer to the desk of Gov. Jared Polis.”

The bill would make oil and gas more difficult to mine, and it could have disastrous economic consequences.

A study released last week from the REMI Partnership found that the bill could threaten 120,000 jobs and $8 billion in tax revenue.

“People will lose their jobs, people will lose their homes, people will lose their businesses. And as we all know when this happens, marriages will crumble, suicides will increase. It’s not a pretty picture,” said one State Senator, Rob Woodward, who opposes the bill.

The efforts by politicians to undermine the energy industry also runs counter to the will of the voters. Just last year, voters defeated Proposition 112 by a double-digit margin, a ballot measure that would have made oil and gas exploration more difficult.

We’ve pointed out before how former Gov. Hickenlooper’s support for the energy industry will not gel with the 2020 primary voters who grow ever more anti-energy (and leftist) with each day. His message of having a robust economy and a clean environment will not be welcome in a party that sees the Green New Deal as an intelligent, reasoned approach.

This is proof that voters don’t want this disastrous eco-agenda. They want strong economic growth fueled by a booming energy industry.