Our weekly wrap on the top 5 energy stories for the week of June 24th

La Plata County Commissioners sent a letter to Colorado BLM Director Helen Hankins, urging that her office engage in better land use planning, before offering leases to oil and gas companies. They did so out of concern for the damage irresponsible oil and gas leasing could do to landowners, water resources, and Mesa Verde National Park. Drilling could exacerbate air pollution at Mesa Verde. This would harm tourism opportunities, and threats to water supplies could negatively affect landowners in the western part of the county.

A Denver Post review of Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission data found that the Centennial State has been hit with 179 spills so far this year. And, despite what Gov. Hickenlooper likes to claim, a quarter of these spills have led to groundwater contamination. The State of Colorado is charged with holding oil and gas companies responsible for these spills and should levy appropriate fines. So it’s puzzling why Governor Hickenlooper recently gutted legislation that would have set mandatory minimum penalties and increased fines for the companies responsible for the spills.

The previous Congress was the first since the 1960s to protect no additional acres of public land. In an effort to not duplicate that distinction, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) introduced legislation that designates three quarters of a million acres of backcountry land as wilderness in areas such as Browns Canyon, Dolores River Canyon, and the Flat Tops addition.

Park Rangers for Our Lands founder and former National Park Ranger Ellis Richard penned a guest blog for Huffington Post Green to talk about the briefing he delivered alongside NPCA’s Dr. James Nation, last week. A standing-room-only crowd listened and asked questions to learn about the threat that encroaching drilling and fracking operations pose to national parks, from a man who spent nearly 30 years protecting them.

Forbes took a look at the forces driving oil and gas drilling in America, and sure enough they’re economic in nature, not regulatory. As oil and gas executives and their allies in Congress continue to try and push more government handouts to billion-dollar companies, too much production could put oil right where natural gas is – in the red.

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