Ten Years Ago This Week: After three months of behind-the-scenes wrangling with the legislature and increasing speculation and chatter emanating from both inside and outside the gold dome, Gov. John Hickenlooper announced that he he had been unable to strike a compromise on a special session to address oil and gas legislation.

“It would be a waste of taxpayer’s money to hold a special session that likely would not achieve a legislative solution,” said House Majority Leader Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, D-Longmont.

Hickenlooper had hoped to use a special session to prevent a series of ballot initiatives being brought by millionaire Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, CD-2, which aimed to increase oil and gas development regulations.

The organization aligned with Polis’s push, Coloradans for Local Control, offered local governments the ability to regulate oil and gas activities, including potentially damaging hydraulic fracturing. CLC had narrowed down a long list of twenty proposals to just two. Initiative 88 would mandate minimum setbacks of 2,000 feet between wells and inhabited structures and Initiative 89 would assert a right to clean air, water and scenic values.

Hickenlooper and his staff had managed to draft a bill which his office said had struck the right balance and would have negated the need for a special session but both the Colorado Oil and Gas Association and the Colorado Petroleum Association had remained vehemently opposed to the bill.

Neither party in the legislature was pleased either. Republicans suggested that Hickenlooper was only trying to appease Polis who they felt was holding the General Assembly hostage, and Democrats in the House were frustrated at what they saw as Hickenlooper caving to the oil and gas industry’s demands.

At a press conference at the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, Hickenlooper stood before a bipartisan gathering including former Mayor Wellington Webb and Assistant Senate Minority Leader Mark Scheffel, R-Parker, and said, “…attempting to resolve these issues on the November ballot is a bad idea for Colorado.”

Hickenlooper stated that the ballot measures put “literally thousands and thousands of jobs, billions of dollars of investment and hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue” at risk.

Polis had pledged to fund the ballot initiatives himself and blamed “special interests and out-of-state organizations, worried only about politics and partisanship” for the inability of the state government to come to a compromise.

“I have said from the beginning of this debate,” Polis said, “that my one goal is to find a solution that will allow my constituents to live safely in their homes, free from the fear of declining property values or unnecessary health risks, but also that will allow our state to continue to benefit from the oil and gas boom that brings jobs and increased energy security. I am confident that the majority of Coloradans share this goal, and I am committed to continuing this work to protect our Colorado values.”

Maria Sheldon, spokeswoman for Coloradans for Safe and Clean Energy, said that they were simply offering voters a choice. Sheldon pointed to polling from Benenson Strategy Group that found that the initiatives had over 60% approval ratings.

Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, called on Polis to end his “bullying tactics.”

“There is … only one person responsible for putting Colorado families and communities at risk, and that person is the millionaire congressman from Boulder,” McNulty said.

Tisha Schuller, president and chief executive of COGA, said that, “With a special session no longer a possibility, I encourage Colorado’s energy users to tell Congressman Polis what they think of his extreme proposals that would cripple a Colorado industry. It’s time for Congressman Polis to think of more than himself.”

Rachael Wright is the author of the Captain Savva Mystery series, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing writer to Colorado Politics and The Colorado Springs Gazette.