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Oil firms pull out big bucks to fight plan

Companies have given $3.6 million to defeat proposed initiative

By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 4, 2008 at 12:20 a.m.

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EnCana Oil and Gas Inc. workers replace corroded pipe in a three-year-old gas well in July 2007 outside of Rifle.

Photo by Matt Mcclain / The Rocky

EnCana Oil and Gas Inc. workers replace corroded pipe in a three-year-old gas well in July 2007 outside of Rifle.

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Big money is rolling in from major oil companies to fight a proposed ballot measure that would increase state tax revenues from the oil and gas industry.

According to a financial statement filed Thursday, Chevron Corp., EnCana Oil and Gas Inc., and Williams Cos. each gave $1 million to Coloradans for a Stable Economy, a group fighting the initiative.

Another half-million dollars came from Pioneer Natural Resources, while Questar Exploration and Production Co. contributed $100,000.

So far, reported expenditures by the group total slightly less than $200,000.

The early contributions are an indication of the resources that will be expended by the industry to fight the initiative backed by Gov. Bill Ritter. "When one industry is singled out for such a massive tax increase, of course they're going to fight it," said Dan Hopkins, spokesman for Coloradans for a Stable Economy.

Under the proposed ballot measure, the state would do away with a tax credit that saves the oil and gas industry $200 million to $300 million a year of severance taxes.

If the initiative passes, 60 percent of the new revenue would go to funding college scholarships, 15 percent to roads and clean water projects in areas affected by the energy boom, 15 percent to protect wildlife that are losing habitat to drilling, and 10 percent for the development of clean energy sources.

Backers of the initiative, who have yet to file a financial statement, said on Thursday they weren't surprised by the hefty contributions.

"We always knew it would be a David-and-Goliath struggle to end Colorado's $300 million subsidy for the world's richest industry," said George Merritt, spokesman for A Smarter Colorado, which supports the measure.

A Smarter Colorado is still collecting the 76,047 signatures needed to put the initiative on the November ballot.

Insiders have predicted the oil and gas industry would spend from $15 million to $20 million to defeat the measure.

At issue

* The ballot initiative asks voters to eradicate a property tax credit that allows oil and gas companies to deduct 87.5 percent of their local property tax bills from their state severance tax payments.

$300 million will be raised annually for the state if it's approved, with money directed toward college scholarships, projects in communities affected by energy development and projects to boost alternative energy and help wildlife.

Comments

  • July 4, 2008

    3:55 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    happymike44 writes:

    Big Oil needs to stop ripping off the consumer.
    I mean we are already paying for the war.
    While they get richer by the day off the backs of the average person.
    Why shouldn't they have to reduce the cost of gas to us the average person.
    If not let them pay for the cost of these wars and stop making us poorer in the process.
    Like my mother always said: You can't have it both ways.
    Also how about deporting all the illegals no one has thought of all the energy they are consuming.
    Just might cause some of our costs to go down.

  • July 4, 2008

    9:12 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Oliver2 writes:

    http://www.coloradopols.com/showDiary...

  • July 4, 2008

    10:10 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jbowen43 writes:

    So this is what they do with their profits. I thought they were plowing that back into exploration. Well, it's not as bad as when Mobil Oil bought Montgomery Wards and the Banning Lewis Ranch with their windfall profits. Of course we are still waiting for them to start drilling there. Maybe it's about time they paid their fair share of taxes. I pay my taxes so should everyone else.

  • July 4, 2008

    1:42 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    LoFat writes:

    "Fair Share" is just a tag phrase used by tax-and-spend liberals wanting even more undeserved money for entitlements. Sixty percent of the new tax revenues to go to colleges? CSU-Pueblo has just re-instated a college football program. Was it necessary? NO!! There are your tax dollars at work! Let's take away sixty percent of the funding they get now until they actually start teaching their students something other than blind devotion to socialism and its various "causes". Ritter has to be one of the worst tax-and-spend socialists I have ever seen.

  • July 4, 2008

    1:51 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    LoFat writes:

    Oliver2

    Checked your web site. Never saw such mindless drivel in the last thirty years. I now know what Rush Limplog and his misleading cohorts mean by "kool-aid drinkers". I personally am a moderate Democrat with hawkish leanings in the pattern of JFK. When are you far left socio-communist lemmings going to wake up and have a legitimate thought of your own ? I am assuming that you do have the capability of independent rational thought.

  • July 6, 2008

    7:52 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Sankhara50 writes:

    So they spend 1 or 2 million to get subsidized by about 200 million a year? Crazy.
    If it's just the taxes they should be paying, I'm not sure how it is left-wing craziness to use taxes for schools, wildlife protection and promoting clean energy. I guess there may be better things to do with it though.
    Why are the oil and gas companies subsidized in the first place like this? Were they in danger of going under or something before? I couldn't find the initial reason for the subsidy, but I found this in case it adds to the info.
    http://ednewscolorado.org/blog/index....

  • July 7, 2008

    10:33 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    an3378 writes:

    I think that these taxes on oil and gas industries should have happened long time ago. They seem to have enough to just throw away on not being taxed...this is all backwards to me....but it seems everything about oil and gas anything is backwards nothing new..