Free Republic

Boulder - Remember that unsuccessful attempt in the legislature to toughen penalties for vandalizing oil and gas equipment? Child’s play. It turns out the author of a letter to the editor in Boulder’s Daily Camera that got a national media mention last week — for appearing to endorse outright violence against fracking operations — is the author of a pending statewide ballot issue to hike Colorado’s severance tax on oil and gas production. Reached by phone today, Andrew O’Connor, of Lafayette, unapologetically reiterated his hardline stance ... “I wouldn’t have a problem with a sniper shooting one of the workers”...

Let's imagine that an activist for a conservative cause supported committing physical violence up to and including murder against people doing things he or she sees as "immoral" in a letter to the editor at a local newspaper, and that this same person was behind a state ballot initiative designed to limit the activities of those "immoral" people. No one would reasonably expect that the leading newspaper in the state involved would for all practical purposes ignore this person's activities. But from all appearances, the Denver Post has virtually ignored the violence-advocating Andrew O'Connor, as well as his co-sponsorship of...

The Trump administration is developing an order to open new areas to offshore oil and gas drilling, reversing former President Barack Obama’s unilateral decision to lock up most of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, according to industry sources. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke told industry representatives the new drilling plan would be signed soon, according to Bloomberg. However, he gave few details on what the order could include. The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) new five-year offshore drilling plan could take years to develop and would replace the Obama administration’s five-year plan finalized in November. President Donald Trump promised...

President Donald Trump as a candidate promised to unshackle the American energy industry by undoing most of the job killing regulations created by the Obama administration. In a court filing, Justice Department lawyers revealed that the new administration is planning to repeal the Obama hydraulic fracturing rule, that placed severe restrictions on the process of getting oil and natural gas from shale. Earlier yesterday, the administration said they would roll back some of the automobile emissions standards and curtail other Obama administration environmental rules on water and coal leasing.

The draft report on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) from the EPA is nearing the end of its more than five year journey and the findings were a major blow to the green energy crowd. Try as they might, there simply was no evidence of systemic contamination to ground water or other resources and the report essentially gives the practice a qualified thumbs up. That didn’t sit well with the major environmentalist donors to the Democrats, so plans have been in the works to sabotage the report. That showed up this week when the ad hoc panel of science advisors to the...