Aspen has never been a community to let others make its decisions. For decades, residents have worked through difficult conversations about growth, transportation, housing, historic preservation, energy and climate. We have not always agreed, but we have valued the ability to shape our own future. 

That is why I am voting no on Amendment 82. 

No right is unlimited, and when the ballot text spells out no limits, courts end up drawing their boundaries one lawsuit at a time. Local pipeline safety rules, building codes, setbacks from homes and schools, and fire district orders during drought could each be challenged by someone claiming the rule burdens their right to buy or sell natural gas. Whether or not those lawsuits succeed, they cost local governments time and money and make officials hesitant to act. On the Western Slope, where people have long preferred to make their own decisions rather than have them made in Denver, that should give us pause.

Amendment 82 would not give us a new right to purchase natural gas. We already have that right, thank you. What it would do is undermine our state’s efforts to reduce both air pollution and climate change emissions and cost our state money in legal battles. Its purpose is to benefit one special interest group: the methane gas industry. It’s a bad deal for the rest of us.

“Logan Harper, a family physician that focuses on the effects of climate change on public health, said that’s ‘because it gives the industry a legal tool to fight back against anything the government does to try to limit their ability to sell natural gas.’

“If the amendment becomes part of the constitution, it would become open to interpretation through legal challenges, which Harper said the oil and gas industry could use to preempt any kind of regulation.

‘The government's ability to kind of keep fracking away from homes, to keep air pollution at a minimum, (and) to protect the public health of Coloradans would be at risk if this amendment passes,’ he said.”

“[T]those who oppose the amendment say natural gas protections do not belong in the state constitution.

K.K. DuVivier, a professor at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, said a constitutional protection for natural gas would pave the way for other special interests to be enshrined in the state’s governing document.

“‘It’s just crazy for every special interest to have a little nook in the constitution,’ DuVivier said. ‘We don’t need to clutter it up with all of these special interest privileges.’”

“We can see why the natural gas industry feels as though it is under attack and why a utility such as Xcel might worry they will be on the hook for obsolete infrastructure no one is using.

But none of those concerns warrant a constitutional amendment protecting the use of natural gas.”

“Pinkowitz lives 10 minutes from an Aurora neighborhood where a data center has been proposed. He said data centers often use natural gas and believes Amendment 82 could allow developers to circumvent local decision-making.

‘This could effectively override their decision-making and supersede that, and really give data center developers carte blanche to develop fields right next to homes,’ Pinkowitz said.”

“Business leaders don’t need special constitutional protections, and neither does methane gas. We need responsive local government, predictable and common-sense rules, and the flexibility to adapt as circumstances change. Amendment 82 threatens all of that, and I’ll be voting ‘no’ in November. I’d encourage other business owners across Colorado to take a close look at what this measure actually does before they vote.”

“‘This constitutional change is basically this one size fits all mandate that supersedes that kind of local authority,’ Farnan said. ‘It is intentionally misleading and will handcuff Colorado’s ability to hold corporate polluters accountable, because it basically gives them a new legal tool.’”