Ruling Democrats at the Legislature may be soft on criminals, but they have no problem handing out harsh punishment for Colorado’s oil and gas producers.

It doesn’t seem to matter that most Coloradans depend on the industry for heating their homes and refueling their cars and trucks. Or, that oil and gas has managed — despite successive waves of smothering state regulations — to remain one of the state’s largest economic sectors and most prolific job creators.

Last week, the Legislature’s most ardent foes of fossil fuels unveiled a new round of anti-oil-and-gas legislation that amounts to a death sentence.

As detailed by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce’s Sum & Substance news service, the bills broadly purport to reduce emissions from a range of activities — from transportation to warehouses — but their true aim is to lower the boom on oil and gas exploration and production. They also draw a bullseye on the state’s only oil refinery, in Commerce City, which produces much of Colorado’s gasoline and most of its asphalt for paving roads.

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“These bills seek to end the Colorado oil and gas industry and upend a $48 billion industry without regard to the lives of those who depend on it,” Colorado Oil & Gas Association President Dan Haley declared at a news conference on Thursday following the bills’ debut.

The radical overreach of the measures is astounding.

SB24-165, sponsored by Democratic Sens. Kevin Priola of Henderson and Lisa Cutter of Morrison, would, among other provisions, ban oil-and-gas drilling outright from May 1 to Sept. 30 each year.

SB24-166, sponsored by Sen. Faith Winter, D-Broomfield, ramps up penalties for emissions and forces the hand of state regulators on enforcement. The bill sets up new categories of “repeat violators” and “high-priority repeat violators” with penalties no less than 50% of the maximum allowable penalty. No flexibility — just a sledgehammer.

The bill also exempts revenue reaped by the hefty new fines from government growth limits under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. And it allows private parties to sue alleged violators of emissions standards and awards plaintiffs court costs. It’s a boon to trial lawyers, if not the environment — while assuring bankruptcy for energy producers.

There’s more. HB24-1330, sponsored by Democratic Reps. Jennifer Bacon of Denver and Jenny Willford of Northglenn, attaches assorted new conditions to drilling permits granted by the state. Among those, it would require state regulators to weigh new drilling permits against the sum total of all the expected emissions from those wells. That effectively could nix them.

As Sum & Substance also notes, those bills arrive atop SB 159, introduced earlier in the session, to limit the number of drilling permits issued in 2028 and 2029, bar the state from issuing any more such permits beginning in 2030 and requiring drilling to begin at all previously permitted sites by 2032.

Is the radical action warranted? Is Front Range air in dire need of wrecking an entire industry — and jeopardizing the principle sources of energy for our economy and our lives in general?

As Haley and other advocates for the industry frequently point out, Colorado already is one of the most heavily regulated states when it comes to emissions. The oil & gas industry in fact has wound up in the forefront of the cleanup.

But such legislation isn’t really about healthier air; it’s about a blind dogma against drilling. Natural gas — which keeps most of us warm and cooks most of our dinners — is actually pretty clean, after all.

In other words, the aim of the bills isn’t to clean up the industry, but to kill it.

Colorado Springs Gazette Editorial Board