One of the most consequential bills of the legislative session continues in a holding patten in the state Senate, after it was “laid over” again on Tuesday, just as it was Monday.

Senate Bill 181, which would grant local control on where oil and gas wells locate, is expected to (eventually) have an easy ride to the governor’s desk, however.

> RELATED: Colorado House passes big oil & gas bill

House Democrats made some technical amendments to the bill when they passed it last week. The Senate passed the bill on March 13.

The question is whether the Senate simply accepts those changes and gives final passage to the legislation, or appoints a committee to negotiate with House counterparts. Doing that would yield a single bill both chambers would vote on before the session ends on May 3.

Republicans, a few Democrats in the House and the industry advocates say Senate Bill 181 could cripple a major employer and source of tax revenue by creating a patchwork of local regulations and uncertainty for oil-and-gas investors and decision-makers.

Last November voters statewide heard similar arguments and handily rejected Proposition 112, which would have created a 2,500-foot setback for drilling operations from neighborhoods, schools or businesses.

The bill would instruct the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the panel that oversees the industry now, to put public health safety and the environment over the prosperity of the industry.

Lawmakers in both parties have been getting tremendous pressure from oil-and-gas proponents and opponents.

Those on the left don’t think the bill is tough enough, though Colorado Rising, the group that drove Proposition 112, called it a step in the right direction, but said the House amendments created cracks in the law that the industry could exploit.

“There were some very obvious loopholes granted to industry,” Colorado Rising spokeswoman Anne Lee Foster said in a statement. “Rule-making will be critical in protecting Coloradans and making sure 181 fulfills the new mandate of prioritizing health and safety. Colorado Rising will be there to empower communities and fight for and our environment and public health.”

But in an op-ed in the Greeley Tribune last weekend, U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican, likened the Colorado legislation to the Green New Deal that Democrats are pushing in Washington.

Both are job killers, wrote Gardner, a former state legislator from Yuma.

“The real-life impact this anti-jobs measure will have on tens of thousands of hardworking Colorado families must be taken seriously,” Gardner wrote.

His op-ed was emailed to the press and Republicans by the state GOP Tuesday.

“If we don’t speak out now, Democrats will pass SB 181 and kill thousands of Colorado jobs,” said the e-mail from U.S. Rep. Ken Buck of Windsor, the newly elected chairman of the Colorado Republican party.

We continue to evaluate the amendments,” said Sen. Mike Foote, D-Lafayette, one of the sponsors of the bill.

He said industry representatives and other opponents allege that they didn’t have an opportunity to weigh in on the bill.

“That’s not true,” he said, adding that lawmakers are looking at ways to make that point in the final bill “to correct the record.”

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