Permits denied, leases lost: Inside the MOU reshaping oil and gas production in Colorado
By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice
Colorado’s 2024 MOU with BLM is being used to block drilling on federal land, reroute energy dollars and shift authority from Washington to regulators aligned with the Polis anti-fossil fuels agenda.
In September 2024, a document quietly signed by BLM Colorado Director Doug Vilsack just eight weeks before the Presidential election may have done more than establish interagency cooperation. Critics say it handed away federal power.
The document—a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC)—opened the door for Colorado to impose sweeping restrictions on oil and gas production.
Those restrictions now apply even to federally controlled minera...

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