Local Ballot Initiatives: What Price Oil And Gas Development?

BOULDER, CO -- There are currently no oil and gas extraction sites within Boulder city limits, but a measure on the 2018 ballot seeks to ensure that any possible future operators would pay. If it passed, City of Boulder ballot issue 2c would impose an oil and gas pollution tax of up to $6.90 per barrel of oil extracted or $0.88 cents per thousand feet of cubic gas. The money raised would be used for general purposes as well as to off-set the costs of oil and gas development.

A similar measure appears as question 2A on the City of Lafayette ballot.

When calculating what they call the "true social costs" of oil and gas development, Boulder city staff took into account metrics such as community health problems or damage to natural ecosystems.

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Dan Haley, head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, disagreed with their assessment in a statement to the Daily Camera earlier this year. "While the city's proposed measure emphasizes 'costs' it forgets to reference the unmeasurable benefits oil and natural gas provide our society." Haley also believes that the measure would overstep Boulder's authority as a local government and could leave the city open to lawsuits.

Boulder's chief sustainability officer, Kendra Tupper, told the Camera in August that the measure was drafted in response to the demands from local residents for greater action from the city. Tupper said residents were "asking the city to do whatever we could to limit oil and gas development," and "try and think of another way to capture the costs being born by the community."

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