With fuel prices reaching record-breaking highs, there is growing concern among Americans about the Administration’s posture toward our energy future. A recent White House press briefing illustrated this concern when Press Secretary Jen Psaki insinuated that the massive fuel price increases were a necessary burden in the fight against climate change.

As a Coloradan, I have witnessed some of the effects from climate change personally. Western states have been impacted by climate shifts, which has forced us to consider the most prudent paths forward around how we utilize our natural resources. While climate action is necessary, it is crucial to be realistic about adopting policies that reduce environmental harms without imposing unnecessary economic damage. Sadly, the recent tendency has been to hastily adopt ideologically-based “solutions”, which end up doing more harm than good.

An example of this act-first, think-later mindset was President Biden’s recent ban on the issuance of oil and gas leases on federal lands. Though advertised as a tool to combat climate change, this move would cost school districts and local governments millions of dollars and eliminate thousands of high paying jobs – many here in Colorado.

Concurrently, Congressional Democrats are pushing forward with more measures targeting the oil and gas industry in their multi-trillion-dollar spending bill. Punitive tax policies, new proposed fees and royalty hikes contained in the legislation will hamper our domestic energy industry by imposing huge production and transportation costs. History has shown measures like this hinder investment, increase reliance on foreign supplies and push costs onto average working-class Americans.

Clean energy sources, such as wind and solar, are currently dependent on natural gas compliments as they are unable to make up the bulk of electrical generation at this time. Because of the inherent vulnerabilities to demand spikes and current technological limits on energy storage, renewable sources cannot provide reliable base-load generation to satisfy demand. Since many states, including ours, lack access to large-scale hydro or nuclear power, natural gas is the cleanest and most reliable source of baseload power generation currently available.

So why would the administration and congress want to impose new costs of natural gas procurement and even enact a new program that would discourage the use of natural gas for electricity and power generation?

Colorado is fortunate to be blessed with an abundance of clean-burning natural gas, mostly located in the western part of our state, but these policies will essentially shut off this domestic supply. Without access to this critical resource, we will be forced into a Hobson’s choice of drastically limited electrical generation – meaning long stretches of no power for lights, air conditioning, EV charging, or the hundreds of other uses we rely on electricity for each day – or reverting back to dirtier coal generation to meet the demand. Keep in mind, coal has a much higher carbon footprint and the transition from coal to natural gas has lowered emissions in the domestic power sector by 33% since their peak in 2007.

We may wish it were otherwise, but the fact is that there are currently no other viable options available.

In addition to the negative impacts such a move would have on our quest for lower emissions, we must also consider the broader economic costs. Even with the setbacks the industry has experienced in this state, oil and gas production still accounts for a great deal of economic activity in Colorado. In 2019, the industry supported more than 235,000 jobs and $30.7 billion in economic value to the state. So the economic impact would be equally drastic.

Take for example the policy to restrict access to federal lands. A study by a University of Wyoming economist found that Colorado would lose upward of $700 million in annual investment over the next five years. Another analysis by OnLocation using EIA modeling showed that the state would lose more than $100 million in revenue if we were no longer able to extract natural gas from federal lands. The federal leases in western Colorado generated more than $147 million in revenues to the state government since 2003. This lost revenue will directly impact the quality of our state infrastructure.

The Denver Metro Area is not immune from these impacts. Many oil and gas related businesses are located in the Metro Area, and many more oil and gas workers and their families call Jefferson, Arapahoe, Adams, and Douglas Counties home. Not least, our communities rely on the clean and abundant energy that is produced right in our backyard, without having to import it from overseas. We simply can’t afford the economic impacts that would come from these punitive policies.

Our state is blessed with access to clean energy sources – both natural gas and wind – and we should be doing all we can to let the market promote their use. We need to be thinking long-term, and new challenges call for deeper thinking than simply imposing ill-conceived bans on the development of one of our greatest and most valuable resources.

Colin Larson, a Littleton Republican, represents House District 22 in the Colorado General Assembly.