Small Laws, Great Crimes: the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Act
It’s been said that small laws breed great crimes. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Act is such a law. The crimes committed against the people in its name are legion.
But it got even more criminal last week when the Colorado Supreme Court decided the protection of public health and the environment was not the purpose of the law, that, instead, the public must share their lives and fortunes with the economic interests of the oil and gas industry. Indeed, the public’s interests might have to be sacrificed if protecting them proves too costly for the industry.
The implication, it could be argued, is that the state constitution got it wrong, and that a court dominated by corporate lawyers is setting it right. The first provision in the Colorado Constitution’s Bill of Rights says quite clearly:
“All political power is vested in and derived from the people; all government, of right, originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.” Colo. Const. Art. II, Section 1.
In reaching out to smack down the rights of the people–the constitution’s “good of the whole” over the rights of money–the High Court also took a meat axe to Section 3, which says:
All persons have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; and of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. Art. II, Section 3
It’s also a fact that the constitution can only be changed by a vote of the people, but perhaps I’m becoming tedious. Still, when the lawless are the men and women festooned in black preaching from a high bench in a marbled palace that Albert Speer would envy, a word of bemusement may be warranted.
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