The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) is undertaking a rulemaking on cumulative impacts that is five years late. This rulemaking started in January 2024, and was off to a bad start then, and was paused toward the end of the legislative session because ECMC proposed legislation that included a definition of cumulative impacts and pushed out the rulemaking deadline. To the dismay and frustration of CHC, the environmental and climate community, impacted citizens and legislators who sponsored air quality and environmental justice legislation in 2023 and 2024, the ECMC draft cumulative impacts rules are NOT protective of public health, safety, welfare, the environment and wildlife.
The draft rules arbitrarily limit an Impacted Area to a 1-mile radius, do not include pollution limits or other thresholds that determine whether an area is over-burdened and inappropriate for new oil and gas development, do not include denial criteria, and open the door for shifting production from densely populated communities to remote and less populated areas.
Please make your voice heard and provide public comment at the Cumulative Impacts Rulemaking Hearing. The hearing is virtual on Zoom.
Oral public comments are on Tuesday September 3rd at 9am, or Wednesday, September 4th at 5:30pm. You need to sign up in advance to deliver oral comments.
- Sign up here for September 3rd. Deadline for September 3rd is August 29 at 2pm.
- Sign up here for September 4th. Deadline for September 4 is September 3, at 2pm.
Tell the ECMC that the draft rules are not protective of public health, safety, welfare, the environment and wildlife, and don’t prioritize avoiding adverse impacts. To protect our community and others, the rules must establish denial criteria and pollution and other environmental and local warming thresholds to determine whether new permit applications should be approved or denied.
Background information:
- Public portal on Cumulative Impacts Rulemaking here.
- Draft August rules here.
- Legislator’s letter to ECMC here.
- CHC’s Prehearing Statement on the June draft rules here. The preferred operator program was removed in the August draft, so you can disregard that section.
- CHC’s Response Statement to Staff’s August draft and Party Prehearing Statements here.
Thank you for making your voice heard!
