Yup. The elite. They want to live in luxury in their warm cozy wooden homes, dressed in fine leather and sleeping on smooth linens, eating and enjoying their beef and farm fresh produce, eggs, butter, bread and fresh milk, enjoying fine wine and cheese and drive around in their expensive cars on paved roads. But they don’t want to be bothered or even think about the hardworking loggers, drillers, miners, ranchers, farmers, producers, processors, manufacturers, construction contractors, transporters, etc, who make it all possible. Obama promises to provide all this stuff by magic.
Industry and capitalism and fiercely independent hardworking people built this great country and provides our high standard of living. Obama and the elite progressives are bound and determined to destroy it.
In Colorado, especially this part of Colorado, there is a lot more money to be made off the tourist business than there is off the oil business.
The state of Colorado would get half the royalty on these federal lands, but they have no input on setting the royalties or setting environmental standards.
This is not to say that there are not areas in CO, that are not tourist areas, that would be more welcoming to O&G development.
Then you look at drilling offshore federal waters in FL, CA, etc. These states don't make a dime off the oil but a spill can crash their coastal tourist economy. That's why only four states allow offshore drilling, and those four states don't have much of a coastal tourist business.