By Josh Siegel, Washington Examiner

Democrats are split over a Colorado ballot measure that would curb drilling in most of one of America’s largest oil and gas producing states.

Facing growing pressure to transition away from fossil fuels to combat climate change, the party is divided on how to manage the spoils, and consequences, of America’s decade-long natural gas boom.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a centrist Democrat with presidential ambitions, opposes the measure – Proposition 112 – as does U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, the state’s Democratic nominee for governor.

But nationally-minded progressives, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Al Gore, the former vice president and environmentalist, have backed the measure, viewing the potential impact of its success in bigger terms. The Democratic Party of Colorado also endorsed it.

“As oil & gas spends millions to fight this, your citizen-led campaign can protect Coloradans and make climate justice history!” Gore said in a Twitter post on Monday.

Sanders projected a similar message a day earlier: “Given the crisis we face with climate change, in my view we should move toward a total ban on fracking,” he said in tweet.

Polis once supported similar efforts to restrict fracking in Colorado, but in running for statewide office, he is more responsive to the economic impact of fracking, which provides millions of dollars of local and state tax revenue.

“We are not Polis’ favorite industry, but he is smart enough to understand, ‘I can’t support something that will annihilate my state’s economy,'” Tracee Bentley, executive director of the Colorado Petroleum Council, told the Washington Examiner.

National groups who support and helped organize the drive to limit fracking in Colorado are also not shy about their larger ambition.

“We have been fighting fracking coast to coast for many many years,” Seth Gladstone, deputy communications director of Food & Water Watch, a Washington-D.C. based nonprofit, told the Washington Examiner. “We oppose fracking and want it banned everywhere.”

Proposition 112 would ban new oil and gas drilling within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, and “vulnerable areas” such as playgrounds, to respond to complaints from communities close to fracking who say wells are increasingly encroaching on populated areas. They question the safety of oil and gas operations, noting recent deadly explosions and tainted groundwater.

A state analysis shows that if the measure passed, it would block new oil and gas wells on 85 percent of nonfederal land in the state. Only New York, Maryland, and Vermont have banned fracking. But those states don’t have reserves like Colorado, which is America’s fifth-largest gas-producing and seventh-largest oil-producing state.

“My message to people outside of Colorado and other oil and gas producing states is: Get ready. It’s coming to a state near you. We are the petri dish for banning fracking,” Bentley said.

Local groups – and Democratic politicians – who favor the ballot initiative offer nuanced reasons for their support, and are humble about what they want the measure to achieve.

“Our main concern is public health and safety for Coloradans,” Anne Lee Foster, a volunteer organizer for Colorado Rising, the main group supporting the measure, told the Washington Examiner. “Global climate change is something a lot of us care about, but the main existential threat to us is oil and gas coming close to communities.”

KC Becker, the Democratic majority leader of the Colorado House, backs the spirit of the ballot initiative, but not primarily for climate reasons. She said Colorado’s constitution has allowed the state to take away control of permitting decisions for oil and gas projects from localities, cutting off community input.

“If I were drafting it, I would have done it differently,” Becker told the Washington Examiner of the anti-fracking measure. “It’s a blunt instrument. But we have worked with oil and gas companies for long time to find reasonable common-sense regulations to address concerns of nearby communities, and that has been absolutely impossible. Many Democrats share the same frustration that oil and gas hasn’t come to the table.”

Becker, however, said she appreciates the value of natural gas in the broader climate change debate. Natural gas has displaced coal in recent years because of its cheaper price, and emits half the carbon.

“I am not trying to ban fracking,” Becker said. “I recognize I am putting gas in my car and heating my home with natural gas. So I recognize reality. I also want to see a transition to renewable energy that is responsible and quick.”

Natural gas supporters frequently tout the leadership of Hickenlooper, Colorado’s governor, for imposing what they say was the nation’s first, and toughest, restrictions in the nation on methane emissions.

“Colorado Democrats are pragmatists,” said Paul Bledsoe, an energy fellow with the Progressive Policy Institute, who was a climate change adviser to President Bill Clinton. “Most Democrats across the country support responsible shale gas development because they know it’s good for the economy and it has allowed us to displace coal.”

Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide. Major oil and gas companies have acknowledged they must do a better job of containing leaks of natural gas in order for the fuel to remain a force in a future world dominated by renewable energy, and other nonemitting sources.

Michael Saul of the Center for Biological Diversity, a national environmental group, says politicians such as Gore and Sanders are right to focus on the climate impacts of fracking, even if it is not the primary concern of Coloradans who support the ballot initiative.

He notes that a recent United Nations report says global greenhouse gas emissions should be net-zero by midcentury to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change, a target which he says would leave little role for natural gas.

“Proposition 112 is a step in the right direction, but not a complete solution on climate,” Saul, who is based in Colorado, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s an improvement of the status quo, not only because of the health benefits, but because it does help accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.”

Josh Freed, who runs the clean energy program at the center-left group Third Way, said he takes seriously the safety and climate concerns about natural gas. But he said Colorado’s ballot measure is too aggressive, and could disrupt efforts by moderate Democrats to help make natural gas cleaner and safer.

“There are better ways to go about addressing concerns regarding natural gas than creating a law that virtually shuts the industry out of the state,” Freed told the Washington Examiner. “That’s not where the Democratic base is. Bernie Sanders speaks for a small portion of the base.”