Gov. Polis says we need to treat SB-181 like a cake, follow the recipe and leave it be (“Give pivotal new oil & gas law a chance to work,” July 24). But you don’t bake a cake when your house is on fire! If the cake sets your house on fire, take it out of the oven and throw it on the ground!

Furthermore, while fossil fuels may be cake, legislation is more like soup. When it doesn’t taste right, you add salt or stock until it’s better. It lives and changes as our environment does.

Polis wants to give SB-181 two years to get “implemented as envisioned,” but fails to explain how he will make sure that it does. The draft rules are dangerously subjective, with nothing keeping oil and gas companies from slipping through loopholes. Polis claimed that the new commission will ensure quality, science-based decision-making, but the rules don’t even require quantitative analysis or protect from conflicts of interest. Isn’t the love of pure quantitative data what separates a scientist from a lawyer or a lobbyist? While Polis describes a wonderful image, the commission hasn’t proven that it’s truly committed to protecting our future.

When Polis refers to messy “ballot box fights,” he uses shockingly cavalier terms to describe the efforts of citizens to save the future of our planet from the corporate greed of oil companies. Ballot measures shouldn’t be necessary if the commission works to protect people over profits, but there will need to be significant edits to the rules if that is going to happen.

Katie Orton

Longmont

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