It seems that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Democrat gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper can’t get along.

First Mayor Hickenlooper embraced global warming and former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, while Candidate Hick doesn’t share the same enthusiasm for either.

Candidate Hick criticized Governor Bill Ritter’s new oil and gas regulations until part of his Mayor Hick base — the Eco-Left — got mad. Now he is backtracking. Oh, wait, Hick’s clarifying.

And now, Todd Shepherd of Complete Colorado reveals that Mayor Hick supported the proposed “crash tax” for any visitor who has an at-fault accident within the city limits of Denver:

Hickenlooper’s office again defended the idea, this time through spokesman Eric Brown, and this time a little more forcefully. “We support it. This ordinance follows through on part of the 2010 budget presented to and approved by City Council last year,” Brown told the Denver Daily News.

Yet Candidate Hick has a different take as Todd summarizes:

“We support it,” the Mayor’s office said unequivocally.  And even though John Hickenlooper sees a horrible economic injustice of the fact that good drivers subsidize the accident response costs for bad drivers, and even though he needed to right the injustice of other kids in the sandbox not playing fair (never mind the fact THOSE districts may have been concerned about the injustice of good drivers subsidizing the bad), the Mayor still says, “I don’t think we’re terribly wedded to it one way or the other.”

Hick also says, if he is elected Governor, he will sign legislation banning crash taxes.

Let’s get this straight.  Mayor Hick wants the crash tax because Denver spent too much of your money and need the cash to help plug the $100 million budget shortfall.  Candidate Hick knows the crash tax wars won’t play well statewide on the campaign trail so he isn’t “wedded to it one way or the other.” And he would be willing to ban them if elected.

Confused? Understandable.  So is Hick.

While asking for his party’s nomination for  candidate  for Sheriff at the Weld County GOP caucus on Saturday, Sheriff John Cooke received three standing ovations.  It’s understandable why. Crime rates and response times are down in the nearly 4000 square miles that make up one of Colorado’s largest counties.

During his speech Cooke held up a copy of the Denver Post and told the delegates that he serves them and not those in Denver or at the state capitol. He referenced a an editorial that took him to task for saying he will encourage his deputies to use their discretion when enforcing the new enhanced emissions area, which requires nearly all Weld County residents to pay $25 to get an emission test when getting license plate tags renewed.

Cooke told the Post:

I’ll tell them [deputies] to use their best judgment and not necessarily write that ticket….It’s already affecting the poorest people in this community, and I would rather have the person going to work rather than trying to run around and come up with $800 to fix his car.

Older vehicles are most likely to fail, thus hurting those who can’t afford late model cars.  The new law will cost Weld County residents millions of dollars at a time when the County can least afford it.  Weld County still is grappling with the collapse of New Frontier Bank and the second highest unemployment rate in Colorado.

Cooke and others including Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway do not support the new law and argue it will hurt the least among us and that Weld County’s air already is clean.  Working with the oil and gas industry, which spent some $30 million, Weld County is in compliance — within the allowable limits for ozone pollution.  Denver merely wants our clean air so it can comply with new EPA standards. From the perspective of Weld County residents, Denver needs our clean air and we have to pay for it.

Memo to the Post editorial board: if you drive even one mile-per-hour over the speed limit and law enforcement sees you and doesn’t ticket you, that officer is using his “best judgment.”

As much as the delegates applauded Cooke for all of the above, his staunch support for the Second Amendment brought down the house. He believes it is the right of every individual to protect himself, his family and his property.  The loudest and longest standing ovation came when he said, “I haven’t and won’t put the name of any concealed weapons permit holder into a statewide data base.  It’s none of the state’s business…”

As a conservative, I was proud to be on the stage with him along with State Senator Scott Renfroe, Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner, Firestone Police Chief David Montgomery all of whom spoke on the Sheriff’s behalf.

As John’s wife, I understand why they cheer him. I love him too.

Delegates gave him what he asked for — their support and the nomination.

More bad news for Governor Bill Ritter and democrats in the state legislature. Under their leadership, Colorado is losing its competitive edge according to a report from the Metro Denver Economic Corporation.

Yet one company is looking to expand in Colorado. You might think that our Governor would welcome this development.   You would be wrong.  In fact, just the opposite is true for Colorado’s $23 billion oil and gas industry.  

Anadarko, one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, is prepared to invest $100 million in the Wattenburg Field.  What’s the hold up?  According to an article in the Denver Post, it’s the permitting process and the length of time it takes to get a permit approval, which has nearly doubled under Governor Ritter’s administration.  

Since his election in 2006, Colorado’s oil and gas industry has been in Ritter’s line of site.  Burdensome regualtions already have resulted in layoffs around the state.  Senator Greg Brophy said his hometown of Wray, Colorado, an agricultural town on the Eastern Plains, has lost some 250 good-paying, oil and gas jobs.

This is not the time to be making it more difficult for companies to do business in Colorado.  Capital investment, like oil and gas, is fluid.  It will leave. Perhaps it’s time to remind everyone, including Governor Ritter, of the KFKA Players and their performance of Andrew Ripemoff’s “When your goose is cooked.”

Governor Bill Ritter and the environmental left have done it.  Colorado’s oil and gas industry is a thing of the past.

Oil and gas executives ranked Colorado dead last among states where they are likely to invest their companies’ money,  according to the Fraser Institute in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  

The Denver Business Journal reported that that the Fraser Institute survey rated Colorado near the top in oil and gas investment in 2007 but now it is dead last among the states, and 81st overall among all international jurisdictions.  Mozambique is a more attractive investment than Colorado.

Oil and gas executives cited Ritter’s new regulations governing oil and gas drilling operations as the reason for the dramatic drop in Colorado’s investment allure.

The survey quoted an unnamed executive saying that in Colorado, “operational, legal, and air quality rules and regulations are being instituted at a dizzying pace. It is hard to keep up with as an operator. Most of the regulators instituting and enforcing these new rules have little or no experience in the industry and do not understand operations. Often they cannot answer questions or help, even with their own rules.”

While Colorado is dead last among states, several in our region were in the top ten including Kansas, Nebraska, Texas and Oklahoma.  

Oil and gas was a huge industry in Colorado .  According to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, oil and gas drilling in Colorado is a $23 billion industry.   To put the economic devastation brought on by Ritter and the enviro-left, check out the following facts:

• More than 70,000 Coloradans have jobs because of the oil and gas industry, with an average salary 32 percent higher than the state average.

• The responsible development of oil and gas resources in Colorado contributes in excess of $135 million to state coffers, nearly 90 percent of state severance taxes.

• Seven of the nation’s 100 largest natural gas fields and two of its largest 100 oil fields are located in Colorado.

• Colorado’s Piceance Basin holds the second-largest proven natural gas reserve in the country.

• The nation’s proven natural gas reserves have increased every year for a decade, jumping another nine percent last year.

• More than one-fourth of the United States’ coalbed methane production occurs in the Centennial State.

• Colorado ranks sixth among the states in natural gas production and eleventh in crude oil production.

• Thirty-six of Colorado’s 64 counties actively produce oil or natural gas.

• Colorado has an estimated one trillion barrels of oil in shale — an amount nearly equal to Earth’s entire proven oil reserves.

• Three of every four homes in Colorado are heated with natural gas, compared to the national average of just over half of homes.

• Three-fifths of Colorado’s natural gas is exported to meet demand in other states.

• With an estimated 21,850 billion cubic feet of dry natural gas, Colorado has 9.2 percent of the nation’s supply, and 6.1 percent of liquid reserves.

What type of leader kills a $23 billion industry?  Answer:  one that is beholden to the environmental left. 

I’ll repeat my prediction: no way in hell he wins Weld County in 2010.

“Why does Ritter hate Weld County?” I haven’t see that sign yet but it is a reasonable question.  Among some elected officials the belief is that Governor Bill Ritter has declared war on Weld County.  We are starting to see the crippling effects of Ritter’s new oil and gas regulations.

Property taxes on oil and gas provide 40 percent of the revenue for Weld County’s annual budget.  Last week on my show, Weld County Assessor Chris Woodruff predicted that because of the new regulations, coupled with lower commodity prices, revenue from the oil and gas industry could be off by as much as one third in 2011 and 2012.  Oil and gas companies, along with their high paying jobs, say they are headed to states where the business climate is more friendly.

As bad as that sounds for Weld County, the Kersey school district will be in even worse shape. According to Chris, the district’s budget is 85 percent oil and gas property taxes.  Maybe the Platte Valley School District can install windmill to make up for the the looming budget gap.

Thanks to Governor Ritter and his environmental policies, Weld County is seeing high paying jobs go to other states and its tax base rapidly eroding.  Ritter won Weld County in 2006.  He won’t win it in 2010.