oil and gas
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Plan to drill, frack under Aurora Reservoir postponed
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Following five days of public comment and deliberation, the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission voted to postpone indefinitely the next well pad application in the Lowry Ranch oil and gas plan. The vote to “stay” — or indefinitely postpone until a condition is met — passed 4-1 this week, suspending the application until Civitas’…
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Audit finds major gaps in Colorado’s oil and gas reporting, enforcement
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The agencies responsible for regulating Colorado’s oil and gas industry are underperforming when it comes to reporting and enforcement and they also failed to collect payments amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue, according to a state audit. The Office of the State Auditor reviewed 2023 data on oil and gas production…
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BLM leases nearly 8,000 acres in quarterly oil and gas sale
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The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) recent quarterly oil and gas lease sale totaled around $7 million in receipts and covered nearly 8,000 acres of land. BLM leased 14 Colorado parcels — making up 7,895 acres — to energy companies, granting them the exclusive right to explore and produce oil and gas for 10 years.…
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After rejection by Colorado Supreme Court, federal judge also tosses oil, gas owners’ taxation challenge
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A federal judge last month dismissed a lawsuit from a collection of mineral rights owners in Montezuma County, following the Colorado Supreme Court’s conclusion last year that they lacked standing to challenge roughly $500,000 in taxes owed. The long-running dispute centers on the McElmo Dome Unit in southwestern Colorado. Operator Kinder Morgan extracts the carbon…
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Colorado Supreme Court signals possible intervention in lawsuit over climate change impacts
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The Colorado Supreme Court signaled on Monday it may intervene in a lawsuit out of Boulder County seeking to make ExxonMobil liable for damages resulting from climate change, one of many ongoing attempts across the country to hold oil and gas producers accountable for the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. Boulder County and the city of Boulder…
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Colorado Supreme Court clarifies who owns oil, gas rights beneath streets
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The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday, citing a need to avoid mass litigation across the state, ruled for the first time that property owners generally retain the mineral rights under roadways adjacent to their land, up to the center line. The decision resolved the question of who is entitled to oil and gas royalties for…
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No ‘right answer’: Colorado justices to decide who owns mineral rights under street
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Nearly a half century ago, a developer in Greeley sold off the lots surrounding W. 11th Street Road. The deeds did not explicitly say what happened to the mineral rights underneath the road. Decades later, after advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling rendered the mineral rights under the road – and other rights-of-way across the…
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Boulder County oil, gas leases not terminated after temporary maintenance pause, Supreme Court says
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The Colorado Supreme Court walked back a ruling by the state’s second-highest court on Monday, holding that a pair of oil and gas leases in Boulder County did not terminate simply because the pipeline operator halted production for four months to make repairs. The justices’ ruling had implications for extraction operations throughout the state, with…
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Colorado Supreme Court eases path for local governments to sue over state decisions
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The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday threw out a decades-old rule restricting the ability of local governments to sue over state decisions, finding “confusion has developed” over who can seek judicial review and when. At the same time, in a pair of decisions, the justices concluded Adams County School District 14 could not challenge the state…
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Colorado Supreme Court considers whether local governments may sue over state decisions
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If local governments in Colorado are unable to challenge the state’s actions in court, it may be because of Martin. “Martin” is not a person, but rather a rule developed by the Colorado Supreme Court over several decades. As it stands, government entities cannot seek judicial review of a state agency’s act when they are…
