The challenge of balancing energy extraction with other uses on Colorado’s federal lands is one factor that will likely keep Gov. John Hickenlooper in Colorado instead of taking a cabinet job if Hillary Clinton wins the White House, the Democrat told The Colorado Statesman on Tuesday.

In an interview at a bill-signing ceremony for the creation of Colorado Pubic Lands Day at the base of Vail ski resort, Hickenlooper also addressed speculation he’s on the short list of potential Clinton vice presidential picks.

“Vice president – I’m pretty far down that list. I know what that list is,” Hickenlooper said. “And the cabinet, those are obviously noble jobs, but I don’t think there’s a single cabinet job that can match what I get to do my last two and a half years in Colorado.”

One thing on his agenda is trying to ease the economic woes of Western Slope energy towns that rely on mining and drilling on nearby federal lands, especially coal towns like Craig and Delta.

“Finding the balance of public lands, really working on workforce training,” Hickenlooper said. “How do we retrain people for new industries? We’re in a place where I think we’re going to have the opportunity to be a national model. That’s fun.”

Sponsored in the Senate by Vail Democrat Kerry Donovan and in the House by state Reps. Diane Mitsch Bush, D-Steamboat Springs, and KC Becker, D-Boulder, the Colorado Public Lands Day bill, SB16-21, which creates a state holiday the third Saturday of May, met with resistance from some Republicans who tried to insert language seeking greater state control over federal lands.

Colorado’s coal industry has been hard-hit in recent years, with mines near Craig and Delta struggling – sometimes unsuccessfully – to stay open and keep high-paying Western Slope jobs. Resort towns like Vail, more reliant on recreation and real estate, have fared considerably better.

Despite a three-year Obama administration timeout on new coal leases on federal lands in order to review royalty rates, Hickenlooper said Colorado’s coal industry is struggling because of market forces, not Washington.

“Really a lot of the conflict going on out there is over coal mines. That’s not any policy out of Washington. That’s the price of natural gas,” said Hickenlooper, a former oil and gas industry geologist turned brewer. “For the same price you can have a very clean-burning fuel [natural gas] or a fuel that’s not quite as clean [coal]. They’re choosing clean fuel.”

Natural gas is hovering at late 1990s prices and is said to burn 50 percent cleaner than coal when producing electricity, although methane leaks can mitigate some of those benefits. Colorado has been a leader on curbing oil and gas methane leaks, something the EPA is now duplicating.

Residents of Western Slope mining towns shouldn’t aim their anger at a celebration of the economic importance of Colorado’s public lands, the governor said.

“Let’s spend more effort and make a larger investment in retraining in those communities where, for whatever reason, a whole industry or a major employer gets shut down,” Hickenlooper said.

Another factor that could keep him in Colorado, he said, is the chance to work closely on economic challenges with his new lieutenant governor, Donna Lynne, who will also serve as the state’s chief operating officer. Lynne, who owns a vacation home in East Vail and was in attendance at the bill-signing Tuesday, is a former Kaiser Permanente executive.

“She’s the executive vice president of an $8.5 billion company,” Hickenlooper said. “She knows how to manage, she can keep multiple balls the air and not drop one. Working with people like that is tremendously exciting, so I think Colorado’s stuck with me for another couple of years.”

Becker told the gathering of Vail politicians and business leaders that she was a former Florida beach girl when her father sent her to camp in Wyoming, and the experience hiking on federal lands was so transformative she became a public lands attorney at the Department of the Interior.

“I will defend how our public lands are being managed day and night, because it’s a lot of balancing, there are a lot of demands,” said Becker, who admits it’s nicer working on public lands issues in Colorado than in Washington, D.C. “There’s resource extraction to outdoor recreation to watershed management. It’s not easily done.”

Doug Lovell, chief operating officer at nearby Beaver Creek ski area, told the gathering the federal government makes an excellent business partner. Vail Resorts supported the Colorado Public Lands Day bill, a first of its kind in the nation and only the fourth Colorado holiday.

“For us, one of the most important and really enduring partnerships that we have is the ski industry’s partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, which is … an example in the country of a great public-private partnership and is responsible for providing about $5 billion in economic activity to the state of Colorado,” he said.

Modern mining, much of it on leased federal lands – the same arrangement as the ski industry – is an $8.8 billion industry in Colorado, according to the Colorado Mining Association. While it’s a crucial part of the state’s history, critics will point out, mining can also have long-lasting environmental impacts.

– davido@realvail.com