Colorado’s proposed habitat map update could reshape oil and gas development

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

ECMC’s 2026 High Priority Habitat Maps

I recently got an email update from the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) about how they are going to update their High Priority Habitat Maps.

The first link below is to their webpage on this update, but let’s go back a bit and firm up some context on this issue before diving in to more details.

A quote from the rulemaking notice gives plenty of detail for what we’ll discuss. It’s lengthy, so I attached a picture of it as screenshot 1.

In brief, high priority habitat maps help dictate where in this state oil and gas development can occur and under what kinds of rules.

CPW (per their explainer page linked second below) has no role in regulating oil and gas in Colorado, but they are the governmental agency that determines which parts of the state are high priority habitat, and for what. They might also, per that same webpage, be involved in consulting with an oil and gas development company, the ECMC and local governments.

ECMC is the group that regulates oil and gas development, so they take the information provided by CPW to write regulations on where and how a company can drill for oil and gas, what kinds of environmental protection/mitigation the company must provide for a given site, etc. They are the deciders.

In case you were curious to get a sense of where Colorado’s high priority habitats are, you can explore different maps in the third link below. I’ll leave it to you to poke around in the map to see different layers (e.g. there are layers that show high priority, say, aquatic habitat), but I took a picture of the sum total high priority habitat for Colorado and attached as screenshot 2.

Quite a lot of square miles subject to extra regulation (at least).

This process, these maps bring to mind a worry I’ve had for a while now. When we reintroduce more wildlife into this state, there is the potential to impact more than just cattle producers. For example, wolverines are just now going to be reintroduced, and bison are now (at least partly) wildlife.

Wildlife, per SB19-181, needs special protection. More wildlife means more high priority habitat. More high priority habitat, more regulation and or prevention of oil and gas development.

Fewer jobs, less severance tax money, less economic activity.

Whether or not this is all part of some grand plan to end oil and gas development, the effect on it by rewilding and reintroducing is plain.

Put simply, it raises the price of poker. It limits and puts more burden on an industry that has no shortage of regulation. It makes this state less attractive to oil and gas development.

It also, and this I am sure is something not unnoticed by environmental advocates who do decidedly want to end oil and gas development. This policy is yet another handy lever to them to pry out their desired outcomes, outcomes they know stand little chance of success through the normal popular government process.

https://ecmc.colorado.gov/news-article/ecmc-high-priority-habitat-maps-rulemaking-docket-no-260100017-notice-party-status

https://cpw.state.co.us/energy-development-and-land-use#:~:text=The%20Colorado%20Parks%20and%20Wildlife%20(CPW)%20Energy,strategy:%20*%20**Avoid**%20*%20**Minimize**%20*%20**Mitigate**

https://cogccmap.state.co.us/cogcc_gis_online/

Related:

While Colorado works to make it harder to get oil and gas out, the Federal government, through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is making it easier.

The picture attached is a recent press release I got in my email.

If you, like me, scratch your head and say, “what on earth is comingling?”, I have a couple things. The quote below is from the Western Energy Alliance spokesman, and the link below that is from a Medium post.

“In simple terms, companies would be able to combine production equipment on adjacent lands, whether they’re federal, private or state. For example, if you have two well pads near each other, and one is a federal well and the other is a well on private land, they could reduce some of the equipment for both down on a single pad that serves both wells. The oil or the gas would mix from both sources, but at the meter the product would be measured so that each party would still receive the royalty they would’ve otherwise received.”

https://medium.com/@marleerosegreasebook/commingling-wells-and-unitizing-reservoirs-in-oil-gas-production-b62999627184

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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