Left-wing extremism poses a greater threat to humanity than global warming. To understand this, consider the ramifications of a draft bill written to forbid new oil and gas wells in Colorado by 2030.
The wise, brilliant and centrist Charles Krauthammer implored, “in America, movements and parties are required to police their extremes.” Visiting with a Gazette editorial board member in 2017, the doctor ranked political extremism as his greatest fear in life.
Since his death in 2018, the left has embraced and encouraged extremism so extreme it threatens the safety, autonomy and financial security of our country’s 341 million citizens and residents.
The proposal to ban new oil and gas wells in a state with the country’s fourth-largest oil and gas reserves showcases why politicians must police their extremes. In addition to the prohibition of new wells, the bill would impose liability for decommissioning and remediating wells, making Colorado a more hostile environment for energy production.
Drafted by Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Boulder, the proposed ban on new drilling would lead to the globe losing a significant source of oil and gas — a major Colorado export that supports more than 300,000 jobs and makes up 7.7% of Colorado’s employment. The oil and gas sector provides $34.1 billion in labor income and tax revenues we depend on.
No state can afford to lose a major export without enduring unemployment and all that goes with it. Yet, the Lewis bill uses the exportation of energy as rationale for the ban because the industry produces “four times more natural gas, and two times more oil than Coloradans use.”
This reveals an agenda of economic isolationism that says to hell with everyone else.
Regions with surplus reserves of lifesaving, poverty crushing oil and gas have a moral obligation to trade with populations far less fortunate. If they refuse to do so, they exacerbate poverty, starvation and climate change — the latter of which Lewis hopes to mitigate with the bill.
Anyone astute in the economics of our global energy market knows this law would deprive the world’s poorest populations of the energy they need to cook, travel and heat human habitats.
Without oil and natural gas, much of the underdeveloped world resorts to burning trees, garbage, dung and other biomass fuels that produce far worse emissions than oil and gas. It would work against the highly regulated harvest of fuels in favor of nonregulated fuels.
With absolute certainty, this bill would cause millions more premature deaths than the worst climate change scenarios.
Fortunately, this law will never survive judicial scrutiny if we enforce our federal and state constitutions. Each prohibits taking property — which includes subsurface minerals — without just compensation. The law would either violate property rights or cripple taxpayers with the high costs of eminent domain. We cannot afford either.
Krauthammer, once a Democratic speech writer, called environmentalism “the new socialism.” Venezuelans arriving in Colorado have lived it. Once a flourishing, developed and prosperous country — thanks to large supplies of oil and gas — environmental socialism has made the country a place to escape. Without its former oil and gas revenues, Venezuelan grocery stores are devoid of food.
Venezuela’s death rate has increased every year since the United Socialist Party took control of the country in 2007. Infant mortality has likewise increased as “life expectancy at birth” has decreased.
Extremism kills. As such, rational Democrats should kill this bad idea with alacrity.
— The Gazette (Colo. Springs) Editorial Board, Feb. 14
