Colorado Activists Organizing for Statewide Voter Initiative the “Right to Local Self-Government Act”
On Election Day five communities in Colorado voted “no” to hydraulic fracking for methane gas. This rebuke has not gone unnoticed. Lafayette is being sued by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association as is Ft. Collins, while Longmont and Broomfiled are being sued by the state to overturn their fracking bans. But, those who want to protect the water, air and soil – the ecology of their communities – are not stopping, they are escalating. The Colorado Community Rights Network is organizing for a statewide voter initiative that would give local governments across the state the power to protect the health and safety of residents by banning or restricting oil and gas drilling and other industrial activities now permitted by state law.
The group will need to collect 86,105 valid signatures would need to be presented to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office — to qualify the measure for the November ballot. If they succeed it will be the first such initiative in the United States.
Lafayette resident Cliff Willmeng, who successfully led the charge in Lafayette to ban any new oil and gas drilling there, told the Daily Camera, “The measure would address any type of corporate project that a local community would deem to be a threat. That could include hydraulic fracturing (or fracking), but would not be limited to it.” For example, the measure would allow local communities determine whether GMO crops can be planted, dams can be built, or other mining activities could occur. (See language of the proposed initiative below.)
The industries that profit from these activities will surely fight back with a massive advertising campaign and legal challenges. The process of pursuing this initiative is sure to sharpen the debate about extreme energy extraction and other industries that impact communities. It will also sharpen the debate about participatory democracy in the United States.
This debate will not only be about extreme energy extraction but also about community control for their health, safety and environment. Are local governments powerless to stop activities that undermine the health, safety and environment of their communities? Does democracy mean that local communities can be dictated to how they live their lives? What kind of participation do people have in deciding the fate of their communities?
Ben Price, project director at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which is providing legal counsel to the effort, told Al Jazeera that the measure is less about regulation and more about the protection of individual rights for the citizens of Colorado, “The idea of consent of the governed says the people directly affected should make that decision. We’re not saying people should have a voice — we’re saying people should have the authority to decide.” This is really a debate between representative democracy which is failing people and participatory democracy where the people decide their own fate.
It comes down to corporate power vs. community power, as the organization says on its Facebook page: “Today, communities across the country are finding that they don’t have the right to make critical decisions for themselves — such as the right to say ‘no’ to fracking or factory farming, and the right to say ‘yes’ to sustainable energy and food systems. “[They’re also] finding that our structure of law elevated corporate decision making over community decision making.”
In comments in the media the Colorado Oil and Gas Association has consistently described the idea of local democracy as “radical.” Yes, people power making democratic decisions compared to corporations making backroom deals with politicians and regulators would be radical in the United States today, but it shouldn’t be. This along with their lost profits – which they will frame as lost income for the community – seems to be their talking points. Activists will have to develop sharp and clear responses to these claims if they are to succeed.
Former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, Jr., in response to the five counties that banned or placed a moratorium on fracking, wrote a column in the Denver Post, Finding balance on Colorado oil and gas leasing, that advocated for continued drilling by the oil and gas industry and proclaimed regulations were sufficient to protect the public. He urged more community involvement in decision making but left the final decisions to state regulators.
The Colorado activists were happy to engage with the former governor. Cliff Willmeng wrote in response:
“Ritter’s article was published just days after the Aspen Times reported that ‘Elevated levels of chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects, infertility and other health impacts have been found in water samples taken from places in Garfield County where spills of natural gas or gas drilling byproducts occurred over the last six years.’ Even so, Ritter portrays the underlying problem of oil and gas activity in political terms, saying that continuity of drilling is the most important consideration rather than either the science or the civil rights of affected communities.”
Willmeng correctly portrays Ritter’s proposals as “symbolic measures … taken to pacify Colorado’s communities.” These types of inadequate non-solutions are the types of steps we expect from people in the power structure when they see a political movement growing and threatening their political power.
We’re thankful that activists see through these inadequate proposals and being uncompromising in their demand for local control. They should realize it is a sign of their growing strength and they should continue to aggressively educate and organize people in Colorado. People powered movements need to broaden and deepen support for their cause at this critical stage of development so that they can withstand the aggressive response from the oil, gas and other industries that is surely to come.
This is the beginning of a great debate about the future of extreme energy extraction, local, participatory democracy and what kind of country we will have in the future.
Draft of language for proposed “Right to Local Self-Government Act”
“As all political power is vested in and derived from the people, and as all government of right originates from the people, the people have an inherent and inalienable right to local self-government, including in each county, city, town, and any other municipal subdivision or other local community within the State. That right shall include, without limitation: (a) the power to enact local laws recognizing the fundamental rights of people, communities, and the natural environment, and securing those rights using prohibitions and other means; (b) the power to enact local laws for the protection of the health, safety, and welfare of people, their communities, and the natural environment; and (c) the power to enact local laws establishing, defining, altering, or eliminating the rights, powers, and duties of for-profit business entities, operating or seeking to operate in the community, to prevent such rights and powers from usurping or otherwise conflicting with the fundamental rights of people, their communities, and the natural environment.”
