Head spinning is the unwanted reality of today’s world. Let’s start at the international level. The wars in the Middle East since the 1950s have never ended. Though religion and ethnicity are factors, oil and gas access is always predominant for the U.S.

Since oil-and-gas tankers moving through the Strait of Hormuz controlled by Iran bring Arab state oil to the world, there is much at stake. President Donald Trump will go all out to secure tanker access. He will have to do it himself with the possible blessing of a GOP Congress granting his request for up to $200 billion. NATO nations, previous supporters of American military actions, have their hackles up over his many disparagements and are refusing to help. Now he calls them cowards in addition to cheapskates and other slurs.

Though discord between European nations and the US is head spinning enough, Trump’s removal of oil-and-gas sanctions against Iran and Russia to get their oil moving brings on maximum vertigo. According to our Secretary of the Treasury, given the rise in oil prices, Russia will make more money selling oil at the highest prices than if sanctions free up oil and keep prices lower. Those are seriously twisted calculations.

A different kind of damage is showing up in the U.S. with gasoline prices in the $4- to $5-per gallon range. True to form, the president has done everything possible to reduce the nation’s solar and wind energy capacity by encouraging drilling and oil-and-gas company subsidies while eliminating development of solar and wind projects.

Despite the history of oil-and-gas blowups in the Gulf of Mexico and off Santa Barbara in California, our president has asked the fossil fuel industrialists to pump and pipe oil out of these environmentally precarious energy fields. According to him, the high price of oil per barrel means MONEY for U.S. interests.

Since Colorado is among the top-10 oil-and-gas producers in the nation, the president’s push must also mean MONEY for Colorado in severance and ad valorum taxes. This situation has its ironies as we are now at the five-year anniversary of SB19-181 that changed the mission of oil-and-gas development in the state from maximum extraction to protection of the health and safety of people and the environment.

According to Jeff Robbins of the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC), SB19-181 has helped ECMC work more closely with local governments on permitting. According to Gov. Jared Polis, SB19-181 has allowed more “transparency” so people wouldn’t “wake up one day to find an industrial operation outside their home.” Though law requires a 2,000-foot setback between industrial activity and residences, schools, hospitals, etc., ECMC’s rules allow exceptions. The commission has approved 87 well pads with multiple drilling operations closer than the 2,000-foot rule.

The commission has also approved more than 3,000 permits since SB19-181. Though that doesn’t match the drilling bonanza before 2019, it keeps Colorado placed among the top-10 national producers.

According to Robbins, the commission has that slower pace because energy companies must put forward more detailed drilling plans that meet Colorado’s standards. Energy companies continue to complain about the amount of time it takes to get jobs permitted, but the value of the oil and gas apparently makes the permitting costs worthwhile.

Residents in Aurora have fought Crestone’s plans to drill near the Aurora Reservoir and their homes for years. But Crestone is still at it. Occidental and Chevron proceed with permits and drilling. Though President Trump despises the state’s immigration policies and how we’ve imprisoned Tina Peters, he certainly must be happy with our oil-and-gas delivery.

These energy decisions take place against a backdrop of a devastating water and agricultural year for Colorado. In the last week of March with record-breaking heat, fruit trees are blooming early across the city and the state. If an April storm comes up, a big if in today’s conditions, the fruit from those early bloomers will freeze.

Unfortunately, early blooming trees are not on the list of protected species in SB19-181. Water protection is on the list, but drought is not. The president and Colorado’s leaders have put oil-and-gas development ahead of climate-drought disaster as a legislative and state priority.

At least theoretically, the state should be taking every step possible to get Colorado off oil and gas as its predominant energy source if for no other reason than to protect citizens from gas price volatility with Trump as president. For young drivers trying to get to work or school, the cost of these price hikes is unsustainable given rent, health care and college loans.

There’s one step young people can take right now to help their budgets. They can get rid of their gas-powered cars for EVs. Used EVs are now cheaper than other options. They are much less expensive to maintain and fuel. If getting back and forth to work or school is the objective, EVs are great. Young people can show the rest of us the way. Counting on it.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.