{"id":116050,"date":"2014-12-08T22:23:12","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T05:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/energy-companies-wasting-gas\/"},"modified":"2014-12-08T22:23:12","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T05:23:12","slug":"energy-companies-wasting-gas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/energy-companies-wasting-gas\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy companies wasting gas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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A report from Taxpayers for Common Sense estimates that Colorado has lost millions in royalties because of the production practice of flaring or venting natural gas.<\/span>Creative Commons\/Flickr.com<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

BUENA VISTA \u2013 Colorado land is rich in fossil fuels, and a new report finds that millions of dollars of that resource is being either wasted or given away to gas and oil companies. Taxpayers for Common Sense found that the amount of natural gas companies are allowed to burn or vent is costing communities millions in lost royalties.<\/p>\n

In Colorado, almost 28-billion cubic feet of natural gas was lost from Colorado lands between 2006 and 2013. Bill Midcap, director of external affairs with the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, finds it ironic how much gas the federal government allows to be lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur federal government talks about our dependence and reliance on fossil fuels from foreign countries, when we choose in this country to still vent and flare natural gas that could heat houses and communities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Federal agencies are in the process of updating a 30-year old rule on drilling for gas and oil. The report recommends the government collect royalties on any gas leaked in excess of a reasonable amount, and encourages companies to use updated technology to reduce waste.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, there was $380 million of gas and oil released, vented or flared between 2006 and 2013. Ryan Alexander, president with Taxpayers for Common Sense, says that amount surprises most taxpayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people aren\u2019t aware of how much money that is, and it\u2019s one of the biggest sources of revenue to the federal government after taxes,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of times, the companies developing those resources are really getting sweetheart deals. I think this is just something where people aren\u2019t really aware; they don\u2019t think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Midcap says since most gas drilling operations are located in Colorado\u2019s rural communities, they have the most to lose with the current arrangement.<\/p>\n

\u201cRural communities really expect to get that fair share of that income that come from our public lands,\u201d he says. \u201cRural communities invest in infrastructure to support the drilling, so why shouldn\u2019t they get more money back into those rural communities?\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the report, if the federal government does not enact tighter controls on the gas lost, taxpayers could lose more than $1 billion in royalties by 2040.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flaring means millions in lost royalties, report says<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":116051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[13,221],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-116050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-gas-and-oil"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116050"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=116050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}