Colorado’s Supreme Court yesterday struck down local government prohibitions on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, handing oil and gas companies a victory in a lengthy battle over energy production in the environmentally conscious state.
In separate rulings, the court said a moratorium in Ft. Collins and a ban in Longmont were invalid because state law pre-empted them. A lower court had reached the same conclusion earlier.
Read the full story in The New York Times
Last week Stanford University – where wealthy climate change activist Tom Steyer sits on the board of trustees – rejected calls to divest from fossil fuels. Mr. Steyer is a huge supporter of fossil-fuel divestment, a campaign that involves many of the same environmental activists as the climate-speech crackdown.
By convincing universities to sell off stocks, bonds and other securities tied to fossil fuels, divestment activists hope to demonize energy companies and build political support for new climate laws and regulations.
Mr. Steyer, with the help of student activists, was pushing his fellow trustees to divest. But the board’s statement decision suggests he badly failed.
Even though the board believes in reducing fossil fuel consumption, and developing alternative energy sources, “at the present moment oil and gas remain integral components of the global economy, essential to the daily lives of billions of people in both developed and emerging economies,” the trustees said.
“[G]iven how integral oil and gas are to the global economy, the trustees do not believe that a credible case can be made for divesting from the fossil fuel industry until there are competitive and readily available alternatives.”
This is a crushing defeat for the Northern California billionaire and his allies in the fossil-fuel divestment campaign.
The trustees of Stanford know Mr. Steyer better than just about anyone, and even they refuse to follow him.
If he can’t sell divestment to Stanford – where he’s a trustee and even has a special energy policy center named after him – why should any other university take divestment seriously?
Read the full report in The Complete Colorado
Ms. Hanretty, communications director of Californians for Energy Independence, may be contacted at karen@energyindependenceca.com
OK Culver folks… the lesson to be taken away from the New York Times article:
“The Supreme Court has approved signature-collecting efforts for three fracking-related ballot initiatives; the two most significant would effectively reinstate local control over fracking and other activities, and outlaw fracking within 2,500 feet of occupied buildings, waterways and public open spaces.
Supporters must gather nearly 100,000 signatures by August for each of the initiatives to place them on the November ballot. “I think this is definitely going to add fuel to the fire for folks to get out there and help get these initiatives passed,” said Lauren Petrie, a senior organizer at Food and Water Watch in Colorado, an opponent of fracking.”