Dan Haley, who as the head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association has been the industry’s most high-profile advocate in legislative, regulatory and ballot initiative battles, is leaving the association.
Haley said in an interview that after more than nine years he will leave his post as CEO and president of the largest industry trade group in the state later this year or early next, once a successor has been named.
A former Denver Post editorial page editor and corporate communications consultant, Haley piloted the association through the state’s most intense period of legislation and rulemaking targeting the oil and gas industry.
“The biggest challenges over the last nine and a half years was getting our message out to the public and being transparent about what we do, why we do it, why it’s safe, why it’s good for our communities, good for our state,” Haley said.
A more visible challenge was dealing with a spate of ballot initiatives, legislative and regulatory battles. Some of which are still underway.
This week the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission, which regulates the industry, is completing rules to assess the cumulative impacts of new oil and gas drilling — an exercise that has been criticized by legislators as being too pro-industry.
Haley took the post at the nonprofit COGA after a ballot initiative battle in 2014 over measures backed by then-U.S. Rep. Jared Polis that would have required 2,000-foot setbacks from homes for drilling rigs and bolstered local control.
In a compromise brokered by Gov. John Hickenlooper, the measures were removed from the ballot as were industry initiatives that would have withheld state oil and gas revenues from communities that banned drilling.
Environmentalists were back with a ballot measure in 2018 requiring a 2,500 setback and the industry spent $40 million to defeat it. The measure lost 57% to 43%.
“As we saw in 2018, Coloradans will stand with this industry and will do it in large numbers,” Haley said.
Few recommendations for reducing oil and gas conflicts stuck
Few of the recommendations of Hickenlooper’s blue ribbon commission on reducing conflicts between drillers and communities were adopted, but it set the stage for the passage of Senate Bill 181 in 2019.
The legislation changed the mandate of oil and gas regulators from promoting development to protecting public health, safety and welfare and the environment and wildlife. It also gave local governments more control over siting.
In signing the bill into law, Polis, now the state’s governor, said “with the signing of this bill, it is our hope that the oil and gas wars that have enveloped our state are over.”
Senate Bill 181 was followed by four more bills directing air and industry regulators to take further actions, and that, Haley said, became a major portion of his work.
Since Senate Bill 181 was signed into law there have been, by the association’s count, more than 30 local and state rulemakings on oil and gas, with at least two more to go at the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission and two at the Energy and Carbon Management Commission.
“I don’t know if you call it over-reaching legislation and a legislature that puts a lot onto the plates of the regulatory agencies in terms of creating rules for the oil and gas industry without fully understanding the implications of what those rules could do,” Haley said.
“Then it becomes working with the regulatory agencies on finding common sense solutions to those issues, and that essentially, has been the challenge,” he added.
One consequence of the more highly regulated industry is that it is more difficult for small operators to navigate the rules, Haley said.
“We have fewer upstream producers in Colorado than we did when I started,” Haley said. “Those companies need to scale in order to meet that high threshold set by those regulations. And it’s easier to do for larger companies than for smaller companies.”
“That remains a concern for me,” he continued. “We have to remember the importance of small businesses and medium-sized businesses to our economy, and that includes small and medium sized oil and gas companies.”
Of course, the oil and gas wars are never quite over as three initiatives were filed by environmentalists for this November’s ballot aimed at holding the oil and gas industry accountable for pollution. One measure would have ended drilling in the state by 2030.
The industry countered with its own ballot initiatives.
This time it was Gov. Polis who brokered a truce, which included removing all the initiatives and passing two pieces of legislation, one setting new emission targets for the industry and another imposing a per-barrel fee to raise $138 million a year for public transportation and public lands.
“We have definitely found common ground,” Haley said, “common ground to do what’s right for Colorado, but also what works for industry. … The goal is to keep the drill bit turning to the right, and I believe we’ve done that.”
In the last 12 months state regulators have approved nearly 1,100 drilling permits.