David Neslin, Colorado's chief oil and gas regulator, stepping down

Denver Business Journal
by Cathy Proctor, Reporter                                     
Wednesday, February 1, 2012

David Neslin, head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) since 2007, said Wednesday he is leaving to become a partner at Denver law firm Davis Graham & Stubbs Davis Graham & StubbsLatest from The Business JournalsDavis Graham & Stubbs reviews Dodd-Frank challenges in public-company updateDavis Graham & Stubbs signs 12-year lease‘Value challenge’ pushes lower legal costsFollow this company LLP starting March 1.

Neslin oversaw the agency charged with regulating Colorado's $24 billion-a-year oil and gas industry. The agency has a staff of 60, up from 54 in 2008, and an annual budget of about $9 million a year.

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Sorry to see you leave Dave.  You were our Saturday Night Live Special, the Guv's puppet, the industries girlfriend. How can we live without you?  You leaving is pure strategy.  When you are up to your gas mask in resistance, you know it's time to shed that weight and allow another person to hold the elephant.  We welcome the 'noob', whomever it is.

Total ban on fracking not possible, says panel of experts in Colorado

By Monte WhaleyThe Denver Post

COMMERCE CITY — Residents on Tuesday night learned that Colorado cities cannot ban hydraulic fracturing outright in their communities, but they were told there are other ways to ensure the drilling will be done safely.

About 100 people wary of extraction operations near their homes listened quietly as they were told any effort to outlaw those procedures would likely be overturned by a judge. Attorney Barbara Green also said there is little a city can do to regulate the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

But cities can have a say over the impacts a fracking well will have on local wildlife and other environmental concerns, Green said.

"Those kinds of regulations are more supportable," she said.

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By the way, the Denver Post appears to be a PROFRACKING News agency! It appears that everything they spew out is favorable to the industry. 

Ban Fracking in Colorado! Please Sign the Petition

Governor Hickenlooper proposed new regulations that govern natural gas development in Colorado a few months ago. These new rules were just made public, but instead of putting in real protections for our drinking water and families, they fall short by letting companies like Shell and Chevron continue to frack Colorado.

Can you tell Governor Hickenlooper that it's time to get real: ban fracking now!

 SIGN PETITION

Former Petroleum Engineer

Gov. John Hickenlooper

CO

Phone:(303) 866-2471

Fax:(303) 866-2003

As a constituent, I feel the new oil and gas rule falls abysmally short in protecting my drinking water, my family and my community. I urge you to ban fracking in Colorado to truly protect my future.

The proposed disclosure rule has a giant loophole that allows oil and gas companies to claim trade secret exemptions to avoid revealing what they are putting into the ground. There is no appeal to challenge these trade secrets; the oil and gas companies are unaccountable. This trade secret exemption needs to be taken out of the rule.

Furthermore, simply because I know what is potentially contaminating my drinking water doesn't make me any safer--my drinking water is still being contaminated. I urge you to ban fracking in order to truly protect Colorado and Coloradans.


Sincerely,

 SIGN PETITION