Energy Firms Pour $20 Million Into Defeating Colorado Drilling Curbs
Colorado, the sixth largest and one of the fastest growing U.S. oil-producing states, votes Nov. 6 on a citizens’petition that would require new wells be at least 762 m (2,500 ft) from homes, schools and parks.
The initiative, which received 172,834 signatures to get a spot on the ballot, was aided in part by the deaths of two men last year in an explosion caused by gas leaking from an abandoned well near a Firestone, Colorado home.
The state’s oil production rose 26% in the 12 months through July as companies used higher prices to expand in the state’s Denver-Julesberg Basin.