(1) The general assembly finds that:
(a) Colorado is among the top states where oil and gas production occurs,
and the state acknowledges the meaningful economic and job-creation role that
the industry historically and currently has, as well as the numerous efforts taken by
the industry to decrease the industry's environmental impacts and increase
sustainability measures;
(b) Scientific and government agency studies, including the national climate
assessment, confirm that oil and gas operations contribute to climate change and
the loss of wildlife, ecosystems, and biodiversity;
(c) The state permits and regulates the development and production of oil
and gas, and oil and gas development occurs in the majority of counties in the state;
in regulating oil and gas development, the state incurs many direct and indirect
costs associated with the long-lasting impacts caused by oil and gas operations;
(d) Scientific and government studies confirm that healthy grasslands,
forests, shrublands, riparian ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems, among others,
provide critical ecosystem services to humans and wildlife species. Climate change
is negatively affecting the ability of these lands and waters to provide ecosystem
services. However, studies show that conservation and restoration can strengthen
ecosystem resilience against these threats.
(e) The protection and restoration of more connected and resilient land is
one of the most cost-effective strategies for mitigating climate change and
protecting wildlife and biodiversity in the face of a changing climate;
(f) The oil and gas industry is the third largest source of greenhouse gas
emissions in the state;
(g) As documented in numerous scientific studies, including the national
climate assessment, emissions of greenhouse gases lead to changes in climatic
patterns and increase the variability and severity of weather events. Changes in
climate in turn have harmful impacts on native wildlife, habitats, and ecosystems in
Colorado.
(h) The Colorado state wildlife action plan, division-led research, and other
supporting literature identify numerous examples of the ways in which species are
impacted by climate change. These examples include increasing temperatures and
changes in precipitation and runoff, proliferation of invasive species, habitat and
ecosystem degradation, more extreme heat, wildfire, drought, and storms, among
many others.
(i) Additionally, the state wildlife action plan includes a vulnerability
assessment of various Colorado habitat types, noting vulnerabilities to the impacts
of climate change and habitat loss;
(j) The climate change assessment included in the state wildlife action plan,
as well as numerous other studies, documents that a habitat's adaptive capacity to
climate change can be affected by management actions;
(k) As documented in numerous studies, oil and gas production can impact
wildlife and ecosystems through habitat loss and fragmentation and changes in
wildlife behavior, including avoidance of large amounts of acreage around oil and
gas operations due to the increased route density and vehicular traffic, human
activity, and noise associated with oil and gas operations;
(l) Global and regional energy prices increase the development pressures of
oil and gas within the state, generally leading to more oil and gas development
when oil and gas prices are high and, in turn, greater compounding impacts from
both the disturbance and destruction of habitat and increased greenhouse gas
emissions correlated to higher oil and gas prices;
(m) The energy and carbon management commission's rules are intended to
minimize adverse impacts to wildlife resources and ensure proper reclamation of
wildlife habitats. The rules include compensatory mitigation requirements intended
to mitigate oil and gas development's direct and indirect adverse impacts on
wildlife and habitats. Siting of new or modified oil and gas development plan
locations within a high-priority habitat requires automatic consultation with the
division, the energy and carbon management commission working with applicants
to avoid adverse impacts, and, if impacts cannot be avoided, imposing additional
best management practices or conditions on an operator's permit to minimize
impacts. Where residual adverse impacts to wildlife remain after avoidance and
minimization efforts, offset measures are implemented, such as compensatory
mitigation fees.
(n) Despite these compensatory mitigation requirements, oil and gas
operations and emissions associated with the operations have had and can continue
to have adverse climate-related and other impacts on wildlife resources in the
state, and additional efforts are necessary to mitigate those impacts;
(o) The adverse impacts of oil and gas operations on wildlife challenge the
division's capacity to fulfill its mission pursuant to section 33-1-101 to ensure that
the state's wildlife and its habitats are protected, preserved, enhanced, and
managed for future generations;
(p) It is necessary to invest in durable protections for the state's remaining
high-value natural areas and wildlife to partially mitigate for lands lost to oil and
gas operations and other adverse impacts of oil and gas operations on wildlife and
habitats; and
(q) Investment in the following remediation services would partially mitigate
the impacts of oil and gas operations:
(I) Creating new state parks and new state wildlife areas, with a primary
focus on benefits to wildlife and native biodiversity;
(II) Slowing biodiversity loss and improving ecosystem resilience;
(III) Improving wildlife connectivity and migration corridors;
(IV) Acquiring and leasing lands and waters for the protection of wildlife and
habitats;
(V) Restoring lands, including through improvements in grassland, forest,
watershed, shrubland, riparian, and aquatic ecosystem health;
(VI) Native species conservation, rehabilitation, and reintroduction, except
for the reintroduction of grizzly bears and gray wolves that negatively impact
livestock;
(VII) Continued research and monitoring of threats to Colorado wildlife and
ecosystems, including from climate change and oil and gas operations; and
(VIII) The provision of grants, awards, easements, or other agreements solely
to assist in implementing the remediation services described in this subsection
(1)(q).
(2) The general assembly further finds and declares that:
(a) To mitigate some of the adverse impacts of oil and gas operations on
wildlife and habitats, it is necessary, appropriate, equitable, and in the best interest
of all Coloradans to impose fees on oil and gas produced in the state;
(b) Addressing the adverse impacts of oil and gas operations on the
environment requires the implementation of actions, including investment in land,
wildlife, and habitat conservation and restoration to partially mitigate the impacts
of oil and gas operations on habitats, wildlife, and loss of biodiversity;
(c) The fees imposed by the division pursuant to this article 61 are for the
primary purpose of allowing the division to defray the costs of providing the
remediation services specified in this article 61, and the fees contribute to the
implementation of actions required for the funding and supervision of broad
investment in land, wildlife, and habitat conservation and restoration;
(d) The fees imposed by the division are collected at rates reasonably
calculated based on the impacts caused by producers and the cost of partially
remediating those impacts;
(e) By providing remediation services as authorized by this section, the
division provides a valuable benefit to producers by partially remediating the
impacts caused by oil and gas development;
(f) Consistent with the determination of the Colorado supreme court in Colorado Union of Taxpayers Foundation v. City of Aspen , 2018 CO 36, that a charge
is not a tax if the primary purpose of the charge is not to raise revenue for general
governmental purposes but is instead to defray some of the costs of providing a
service or regulating an activity under a comprehensive regulatory scheme, the
charges imposed by the division as authorized by this article 61 are fees, not taxes,
because the fees are collected from producers for the primary purpose of defraying
some of the costs of mitigating the adverse impacts caused by producers in an
amount reasonably related to the impacts caused by oil and gas operations and the
amount expended to mitigate those impacts;
(g) Pursuant to section 33-9-105, the division constitutes an enterprise for
purposes of section 20 of article X of the state constitution, and, as an enterprise
that has existed since 2011, section 24-77-108 does not apply; and
(h) So long as the division qualifies as an enterprise for purposes of section
20 of article X of the state constitution, the revenue from the fees collected by the
enterprise is not state fiscal year spending, as defined in section 24-77-102 (17), or
state revenues, as defined in section 24-77-103.6 (6)(c), and does not count against
either the state fiscal year spending limit imposed by section 20 of article X of the
state constitution or the excess state revenues cap, as defined in section 24-77-103.6 (6)(b)(I)(G).