There are some 100 witnesses lined up to testify at the committee hearing for a bill that would require oil and gas drillers to site wells at least 1,000 feet from school property. Attendees hope the hearing finishes by midnight.

No one at the Capitol could be surprised by the turnout at the hearing.

The overwhelming majority of witnesses are residents of northern Front Range Colorado counties that have been pocked over the last five years with thousands of wells. It’s a “gas-patch” area where agricultural fields increasingly give way to commuter suburbs – a roughly 5,000 square-mile region that stretches from Denver International Airport north of the city to the Wyoming border. It is a main hub of the boom-time oil and gas fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, activity that has criss-crossed the state.

“The oil and gas industry is opposed to this bill. They don’t want it at all,” said state Rep. Mike Foote, a Democrat from Lafayette in the gas patch and sponsor of House Bill 1256. He was fielding questions from a steady trickle of reporters outside the hearing.

The law in the state now is that wells can be sited 1,000 feet from a school building.

But Foote and witnesses at the hearing say that translates on the ground to wells being drilled sometimes much closer to school playgrounds and out-building classrooms.

Drilling on the Front Range has been one of the most charged topics in Colorado politics. Residents of local municipalities have attempted at the ballot box to wrest zoning-style power from the state and have been rebuffed by the courts. The powerful extraction industry has alternatively negotiated with resident representatives and spearheaded messaging and lobbying campaigns to largely maintain the status quo.

In recent weeks, industry representatives have been tentative in their remarks about Foote’s bill, mostly leaning away from supporting it.

Last week, Tracee Bentley, spokesperson for the Colorado Petroleum Council, said the industry in the state was reviewing the bill. She said the feeling was it would be redundant. It was sentiment shared by the Clorado Oil and Gas Association.

“It was only four years ago that the [Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission] rulemaking on setbacks more than tripled the distance for operations near high-occupancy buildings to 1,000 feet,” said Dan Haley, COGA president and CEO. “Then, in 2015, the governor’s oil and gas task force debated the issue at length and found further increases to be unnecessary. Nothing has changed since then to merit a new debate.”

“Look, I’d love to be able to sit down with the industry and try to work something out – and I said so as well before the bill was introduced,” said Foote outside the hearing. “They haven’t talked to me about anything that might improve the bill in their eyes. I’ve heard they’ve talked to other members, but they haven’t come to me directly.”

For years at the Capitol, Foote has championed the cause of residents determined to push back against the drilling industry. His efforts typically run up against a brick wall of Republican opposition.

He said he doesn’t expect things to be different this year. His schools setback bill will likely pass in the Democratic-controlled House and die in the Republican-controlled Senate.

– john@coloradostatesman.com