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Panel to look at using oil and gas revenue to deal with boom

Burt Hubbard, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 14, 2007 at midnight

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A legislative committee will look at ways to overhaul how Colorado spends revenue from oil and gas drilling to quickly inject $100 million or more into northwest Colorado to fix roads, housing and schools affected by the area's energy boom.

The panel on severance tax and federal mineral lease revenue will look at legislation for bonding, large grants and creation of a permanent fund to spend part of the $300 million the state gets annually from drilling and mining.

Colorado's northwest counties are dealing with crumbling roads, lack of affordable housing and crowded schools from the boom in natural gas production.

The measures the committee will look at include:

• Selling bonds backed by revenue from severance taxes and federal mineral lease revenue to raise money quickly.

• Revamping the state's grant program to cities and counties, which is funded by oil and gas revenue, to do away with the $500,000 limit, possibly eliminating the matching fund requirement and giving grants over two or more years.

• Creating a permanent fund from the revenue to prepare for when energy development ends. New Mexico and Wyoming both have similar permanent funds.