Last November, along with an historic blue wave in the midterm elections, the people of Colorado narrowly avoided a constitutional catastrophe at the ballot box that would have devastated the state’s economy, bankrupted local governments, and further impoverished our already cash-strapped public school system. I’m talking about Amendment 74, the $11 million poison pill from the oil and gas industry that would have reduced every land use decision in Colorado to a bidding war at taxpayers’ expense.

Amendment 74 was opposed chiefly by a ragtag group of civic organizations and representatives of local governments because of the unthinkably disastrous effects it would have had on our state. The ballot question looked eminently reasonable on its face, describing the need for “just compensation” and the values of “private property.” In the end, a solid majority of Colorado voters outright rejected the amendment once the facts became known. Related Articles Silverii: Yes, we remember all those “good things” Trump and Gardner have done for Colorado

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Now that leaders in our legislature are considering passing policies on climate change and regulating oil and gas drilling in our neighborhoods, it’s worth remembering that Amendment 74 was a dead-serious attempt by energy giants such as Extraction Oil and Gas, Anadarko Petroleum, Noble Energy and their advocates in the Colorado Petroleum Council to create an insurance policy for themselves.

Amendment 74 would have radically expanded Colorado’s constitutional protections for property owners so that government would be required to provide compensation, in the form of taxpayer dollars, anytime the value of their property was reduced at all by either a new regulation or even enforcing an existing regulation. Today governments are only on the hook when they actually take property; this ill-conceived amendment would have opened the floodgates to litigation from every land use decision, policy change and construction project at any level of government.

The industry spent millions in an attempt to guarantee itself billions in special interest payouts in the event that the drilling setbacks initiative on the ballot last November or other policies were ever to become law. (Disclosure: ProgressNow Colorado was involved in both the campaigns against Amendment 74 and in favor of Proposition 112).

Tremendous political losses for the Republican majority in the state Senate, which Big Oil and Gas had propped up over the last four years with campaign donations, removed the industry’s once-reliable veto over environmental policy at the Capitol, and so the oil and gas industry is once again making thinly veiled threats against lawmakers and demanding more restraint than they’ve been willing to show themselves. The CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade group, warned recently on Colorado Public Radio that “elected leaders who are there now have that responsibility to govern responsibly.”

This is critical to understand. Colorado’s self-identified “responsible partners” in the oil and gas industry, who have successfully blockaded any discussion of protecting neighborhoods at the legislature, bullied lawmakers for proposing even modest new regulations, carpet-bombed local governments with obscene levels of campaign spending.

“Responsible,” indeed.

A truly “responsible” industry would work to ensure that Colorado leads the nation in regulations that protect our air, land, water and communities. It would work in good faith with local governments to ensure that communities get to have a fair say in where drilling was sited or how it takes place. And it would have no problem with health and safety being put first when it comes to drilling in our backyards.

So this legislative session, when bills to give local governments the ability to finally regulate fracking and drilling in neighborhoods start to come forward along with many other long-delayed protections for Colorado’s people and climate, the same well-heeled lobbyists and industry hacks are going to shriek to high heaven about the “irresponsibility” of taking these common-sense steps.

Unfortunately for big oil and gas, they’ve proven that they themselves are not responsible stakeholders.

In the end, this is an industry that has demonstrated time and again that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing all by themselves. With its grave mistake of trying to dupe Coloradans into passing Amendment 74, Colorado’s oil and gas industry finally reached the end of its social license to operate with impunity.

If these same industry leaders want to argue they are responsible partners, their first words should be an apology, and their second words should be “we support” efforts to protect our environment and the health and safety of our communities.

Ian Silverii is the executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, the state’s largest progressive advocacy group.

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