Surprised, and more than a bit stunned after supporting the commission vocally for months, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association blasted the recent move by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to propose 2,000-foot setbacks from oil rigs or fracking operations.

The Association, which claims to represent some 65% of all landowners who raise cattle in Colorado, said Wednesday at a press conference the commissions’ proposed setback rule will harm landowners by negating mineral rights and interfering with local control.

Terry Fankhauser, CCA executive vice president, said the setbacks are proposed to be from the border of the drilling well pad, not just from the well, which could mean setbacks of 2,500 feet in some cases.

“Voters recently overturned 2,000-foot setbacks with a super majority,” Fankhauser said, referring to the defeated 2018 Proposition 112 that called for minimum distance requirements for fracking wells. He said the new proposed rule will result in land “takings without due process.”

He also chastised the commission for “not inviting or including” the CCA in any of the discussions.

The CCA on Wednesday presented three landowners to talk via Zoom about how the setbacks would affect their land, families and community. It included a Weld County rancher, a Hesperus rancher and “royalty owner” (meaning he collects royalties from mineral rights), and a Mead “mineral rights owner.” Each described how the money from using their land for oil and gas development helped offset medical bills, send children to college, or keep land that’s been in the family for generations.

They also described living with children and grandchildren within 500 feet of operational wells and not suffering any ill health effects.

The arguments against the proposed 2,000-foot setback rule have been re-used for countless public debates on the issue: The setback distance is “arbitrary” and not based on science; setback rules can’t be applied statewide as rural and urban land is used differently; the rules don’t improve heath/safety of nearby wildlife or residents; setbacks more than the existing 500 feet (or 1,000 feet from multi-family structures) would render the majority (some 85%, according to some studies cited by the CCA) of private, non-federal land, undevelopable for oil and gas operations and that the commission is overstepping its bounds and impeding local control.

The rules are being changed, and established, by the COGCC because of Senate Bill 19-181. That law also changed the group’s mission from a body that advocated for oil and gas development to one that regulates “the responsible development and production” of oil and gas in a manner that protects public health, safety and the welfare of wildlife and the environment.

The commission – now a seven-member group with five full-time paid professionals and two non-voting members with the U.S. Department of Natural Resources and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment – has been working since early September on the vast rule changes. It has been accepting public comment and the CCA acknowledged it sent input from its members. The changes are expected to be finalized, at the latest, by Dec. 1.

Fankhauser, when asked if CCA had submitted input, replied: “We indicated we would be making comments, but asked if we needed to go through a ‘party status’ process and were assured, as the administration thought there would not be at that time, any discussion on setbacks.”

Hence the surprise.

Tom Compton, a Hesperus rancher and former chairman of the COGCC in 2008, said the new setback proposals “came out of nowhere” and that the commission’s proposal has caused a lot of anxiety among land and mineral rights owners. If enacted, it also will cause more bankruptcies in the oil and gas industry, already hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, he said.

When asked if the CCA, or Weld County landowners, intended to sue over the proposed setback rules, Fankhauser said they would rather work with the commission and come to a compromise, and that only attorneys would profit from a lawsuit.

He said the CCA has been talking to landowners across the state, and urging them to trust the process before the surprise setback announcement.