COLORADO: Coming bills would ban new oil-and-gas wells, stop summertime drilling.

Democratic legislators are preparing to introduce three bills that would make industry-redefining changes to the Colorado oil and gas sector, including a ban on new wells after 2030 and an essential shutdown of drilling activities for five months out of each year.

The sponsor of two of the three measures, Democratic Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson, said the major steps are needed to halt climate change and to prevent what he fears could be a mass extinction of species if carbon production causes the planet to warm too much. Asked about how such measures could impact a $48 billion industry that supports more than 300,000 Colorado jobs, Priola told The Sum & Substance that legislators’ duty is to consider public health and safety above the economy.

Oil-and-gas industry leaders, meanwhile, said that the more appropriate extinction to be discussing is what could happen to their sector if it must cut back operations so severely, as well as to individual and tax revenue it generates for state residents and governments. The quick cessation of production, coming as oil and gas is needed still for everything from home heating to transportation, would require Colorado to import energy from other states or countries, a process that would generate emissions that proponents claim to be cutting, they said.

“There is career-ending language in all of these bills,” said Kait Schwartz, director of American Petroleum Institute Colorado, referring to the many workers likely to lose jobs in the sector if some or all the proposals are signed into law. “I think this is one of the first times they have been blatant enough to use the words ‘phase-out’ or ‘ban.’”

I would say, “Gooder and harder,” except that the people in Colorado’s energy-producing areas like Weld County most assuredly did not vote Democrat.

But what’s the fun of running a one-party state if you can’t wield that power to ruin the lives of your political opponents?