What CPR left out of Colorado’s BLM oil and gas lease auction coverage

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Bureau of Land Management recently held an auction for oil and gas leases in Colorado and, per the CPR story linked below, no one bid. Quoting with link intact:

“On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off leases on more than 20,000 acres of public land in Colorado for oil and gas drilling. The land, divided into 23 parcels, was offered at the minimum starting price, just $10 an acre, and could be leased indefinitely once oil and gas starts flowing. But during the sale: crickets. Not a single parcel received a bid, and only two companies had even registered for the sale.”

If you read the article, you’ll note a lot of space given over to environmentalists who crowing about the lack of bids and their thoughts as to why.

What you won’t see is any response from any oil and gas companies. This felt odd. The reporter apparently tried to contact BLM, but there wasn’t any word about reaching out to any oil and gas operators (in an odd replay of an earlier case involving the Sun and feedlots — see “Related” below).

I reached out to the reporter and he confirmed that he didn’t ask for any feedback on what the environmentalist groups had said, nor for any comment on the sale and lack of bids.**

I reached out to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association to see if they had a response. Their spokesman got back to me with the following statement (quoted from my email):

“Thursday’s lease sale should not be interpreted as a referendum on Colorado’s resource potential; it is a direct signal that our regulatory and permitting environment has become too uncertain and too slow to support long-term investment. Operators are being asked to commit billions of dollars in a system where rules change frequently, timelines for approvals are open ended, and basic expectations can shift in the middle of a project, making it increasingly difficult to justify bidding, even at 10 dollars an acre.”

“Colorado’s natural gas and oil industry supports thousands of local jobs and generates critical revenue for schools, infrastructure and environmental programs, and our members remain committed to operating safely and responsibly in the communities where they live and work. The outcome of this sale should be a wakeup call.”

“If policymakers want to see more bids, more investment, and continued progress on emissions-reducing technologies, Colorado needs a regulatory framework that maintains robust protections while restoring clear, predictable permitting timelines that give responsible operators and the communities that depend on them confidence to invest.”

I also emailed and heard from the Western Energy Alliance (a Western Slope oil and gas group). I sent them the same questions and got the following statement from their president (again, quoting from my email with their links intact):

“Since the reconciliation bill passed last July, lease sale revenues in Colorado are 10-times what they were in four years of the Biden Administration. The results show the reconciliation bill is a success. That’s good news for Colorado communities that receive half the lease sale revenues back. With additional funds, they can better support schools, fire departments, and other vital community services. In fact, Interior recently announced that $14.6 billion in oil and natural gas revenues was disbursed to states and tribes in 2025 as part of the agency’s revenue-sharing program. It’s the fifth largest amount on record. Colorado received $91 million last year. We’re pleased to see BLM is once again following the law by holding regular lease sales and subsequent replacement sales. The replacement sales are a benefit to taxpayers because BLM is taking the time to attempt to earn more revenues. As with any auction, the results will vary. Rather than attacking industry and the administration, activists ought to cheer BLM’s extra efforts on behalf of taxpayers.”

Melissa Simpson, president of Western Energy Alliance

They also attached a table which I attach as screenshot 1. Since you can’t click a link in a picture, I put the source link which was below the table fourth below in case you want to follow back.

The claims of environmentalists are just as important as those of industry. Both should have been included in the CPR article. As you can see from the above, the perspective on the other side of the issue is quite a bit different. You as a reader should see both for a fuller picture.

The lesson for you as a media consumer isn’t a new one. Get in the habit of noting who gets to speak and who doesn’t. Ask for the thoughts of all sides.

**Fairness demands including something else the reporter said. He told me he has reached out to oil and gas trade groups in other articles. The examples he provided are linked second and third below.

https://www.cpr.org/2026/01/09/bureau-of-land-management-oil-gas-auction-zero-bids-colorado/

https://www.cpr.org/2025/03/25/oil-natural-gas-wells-exposure-childhood-leukemia-risks-colorado-study/

https://www.cpr.org/2025/10/27/doe-funding-cuts-overstated-data-shows/

https://nflss.blm.gov/s/sales

Related:

Remember that time that The Sun’s Michael Booth wrote an article about feedlots where he didn’t talk to anyone that operates a feedlot (though he did talk to environmentalists)?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.


https://completecolorado.com/2024/06/03/gaines-colorado-sun-left-out-lopsided-feedlot-story/

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A rush for Northern Colorado groundwater?

The Fresh Water News article linked first below details a plan by a (and this is a novel approach) private company to pump water from deep aquifers in Northern Colorado and sell it to Northern Colorado water utilities.

Quoting the article:

“FrontRange H2O, backed by a Texas oil and real estate company, is behind the venture. The firm has been operating in Colorado for more than 20 years, treating and delivering wastewater from oil wells for oil industry reuse on the West Slope, and overseeing extensive real estate holdings in Denver and elsewhere, according to Brent Waller, who is president of the Loveland-based company.”**

There are more details in the article, but in brief the plan is to drill deep into nonrenewable aquifers in Northern Colorado (having invested for a while now in buying land and water rights), pump it out, treat it, and deliver it to a growing and thirsty Front Range.

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.