A citizen initiative that seeks to enshrine the right to natural gas has qualified for the November ballot, Colorado’s election office confirmed on Thursday.

Petitions containing signatures for Initiative No. 177 were turned in to the Secretary of State’s Office for review in late June. On Thursday, the Secretary of State’s Office said 146,165 of the 189,508 signatures collected were valid, surpassing the threshold.

The initiative from Advance Colorado establishes consumers’ right to purchase natural gas for cooking and heating their homes and businesses, as well as the right of distributors and utilities to sell natural gas to homes and businesses.

“Natural gas is a clean, reliable and affordable form of energy that more than 70% of Colorado homes use today,” said Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado. “That right should be protected.”

The measure is the group’s response to a palpable shift in state policy to turn away from fossil energy, notably including natural gas.

Some 1.9 million Colorado households warm their homes each winter using gas. That’s also how tens of thousands of businesses heat their buildings. Last December, for example, energy regulators ordered Xcel Energy — the state’s biggest utility company — and other nonmunicipal utilities to slash their carbon output by 41% by 2035 as a step toward a 100% carbon-free future fired by solar and wind.

The only way to reduce carbon that much is by switching out the gas-fired furnaces, stoves and appliances of as many as 600,000 customers and changing them to electric heating. That’s according to the Colorado Energy Office, which was among two state agencies that cautioned the utility commission against its ultimate decision.

The environmental organization Conservation Colorado has introduced four ballot initiatives to counter Initiative No. 177. Those measures would have, among other provisions, established a statutory liability for oil and gas companies operating in Colorado found to have damaged the state’s air, water, land or communities and prohibited them from passing on costs to customers for pipeline extensions or decommissioning.

Those measures did not qualify for the ballot.

In May, Democratic lawmakers sought — and then abandoned — plans for a last-minute bill they said would have addressed the potential impact that Initiative No. 177 could have on the state’s air quality.

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, argued the initiative was “overly broad, lacks clarity and could upend years of work to craft durable policy that advances our goals of better air quality, more affordable transit and cleaner energy.” However, after discussions with parties, McCluskie said she and her cosponsors determined their proposal would not “meaningfully change” the impacts of Initiative No. 177.

Republicans celebrated the bill’s withdrawal, with Rep. Dan Woog of Erie, who sits on the House Energy and Environment Committee, saying it would have undermined Initiative 177 and “circumvented the proper legislative process.”

“This policy was directly within our committee’s scope and expertise, and yet, we would have been bypassed,” Woog said. “I’m grateful that with guidance from our leadership, our caucus held the line and made clear that we would not stand for such a blatant disregard of the legislative process.”

Colorado’s state and local governments have adopted a series of policies to rapidly transition away from fossil fuel. Supporters say the shift — even if disruptive in the short term — will leave the state with a more sustainable, energy-efficient system, reduce reliance on foreign oil and deliver long-term environmental and public-health benefits.

Critics argue the transition is moving too quickly and lacks sufficient consideration of whether businesses and consumers can realistically meet the new requirements. They contend that the policies often overlook the financial strain on households, especially low-income residents and that they reflect ideological goals more than practical planning.

Meanwhile, environmental groups and some local governments have long blamed oil and gas companies for causing climate change, a political fight that’s also been tied up in litigation.

In October, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case out of Boulder, in which the county’s Board of Commissioners alleged oil and gas companies knowingly caused environmental damage for decades but misrepresented or concealed their internal filings from the public.

The oil companies have leaned on a decision out of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In that lawsuit, where New York City sued ExxonMobil and other energy corporations, the 2nd Circuit ruled that the city would be “jeopardizing our nation’s foreign policy goals” by deploying state-level legal claims against longstanding national and international energy agreements.

Reporter Scott Weiser contributed to this article.