Natural Gas Week quoted Haynes and Boone, LLP Counsel Robert “Bob” Thibault in an article about a voter initiative that could threaten future oil and gas drilling in Colorado.
Here is an excerpt of the article, titled “Industry Looks Toward Damage Control if Colorado Initiative Passes:”
Initiative 97 would require a roughly half-?mile setback between gas and oil development and residential or other "vulnerable" areas ?? five times what is mandated under current law. Pro?-energy advocates fear passage could obliterate the E&P industry in Colorado, the fifth-largest gas-?producing state at roughly 5 billion cubic feet per day, and slash royalty and tax revenues. . . .
Attorneys and analysts are still parsing the initiative language, but several issues remain ambiguous, including: the scope of energy development activity in question, whether long laterals could be used to get around the setbacks and how much power the measure aims to confer to local governments.
"One of the open questions I find in this statute is the potentially broad interpretation" of that language, said Robert Thibault, a lawyer with the Denver office of Haynes and Boone.
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