Editor:

On Friday, backed by most of the Colorado’s congressional delegation, the U.S. House voted to lift a decades-old ban on crude oil exports, a top priority of the oil and gas companies that, if approved, would worsen global warming and heighten the risk of harmful spills.

Lifting the oil export ban would be a blessing for the oil companies but a curse for the climate and our health. To avoid more devastating impacts of global warming, including dangerous wildfires, reduced snowpack and pine beetle kill, like we’ve seen here in Colorado, we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground and transition to 100-percent pollution-free energy.

We applaud Rep. Diana DeGette and Rep. Jared Polis’s votes, and now we’re counting on Sen. Michael Bennet and the president to stand up to Big Oil and the dirty energy of the past by voting to keep the ban in place and advance a clean-energy future.

Kim StevensState Director, Environment ColoradoDenver