EID’s Simon Lomax testified at the first Colorado Task Force meeting this week.

Listen to the audio of Simon’s Testimony

Transcript of Simon Lomax’s testimony:

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Simon Lomax. I am a Denver-based representative of Energy In Depth, a program of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

Energy In Depth doesn’t make policy recommendations. Instead, it tries to promote a fact-based discussion of the issues, because the facts show oil and gas development is safe, good for our nation and it’s also mainstay industry for the State of Colorado.

It’s not a perfect industry. No industry is, and we listen to our critics. But too often, the claims from our loudest critics are based in politics, not facts.

For example, Congressman Jared Polis funds a group called Safe Clean Colorado, which recently announced it will be actively lobbying this task force. The group says state regulations are inadequate because oil and gas development can happen “anytime, anywhere.” But according to the Denver Post, “This is a lie in so many ways that it’s hard to know where to start.”

Then there are groups like Food & Water Watch, which according to The Colorado Statesman, helped organizie local “ban fracking” campaigns along the Front Range. The group believes hydraulic fracturing must be banned everywhere because it is, in their view, “inherently unsafe.”

This agenda is so extreme it’s been rejected by environmentalists inside the Obama administration and by environmentalists like California Governor Jerry Brown (D), who has been a hero to the environmental movement for decades. U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell says “[f]racking has been done safely for decades,” and Governor Brown says “ban fracking” activists “don’t know what the hell they are talking about.”

There are tens of thousands of men, women and families in the Colorado oil and gas industry who are deeply worried this task force will be misled by groups like Safe Clean Colorado and Food & Water Watch. I implore you: Please do not put the livelihoods of these Colorado families in jeopardy by letting political talking points from ideological groups trump the facts.

Thank you and good luck with your deliberations.