Roan Blown

The oil and gas lease auction for Colorado's gas-rich Roan Plateau was held yesterday and generated $114 million, just 1/20th of what some had predicted. Those who have followed the Roan process and debate know that Gov. Ritter and the Democrat legislature have been working diligently to raise taxes on energy producers, including proposed referendums and radio ads demagoging these producers. Senator Salazar has been working in Congress to increase the already-byzantine permitting process to make it simply not worth the effort. The significantly lower lease bids demonstrates that producers factored higher taxes, increased administrative costs and greater uncertainty and thus discounted their bids accordingly. Perfectly rational.

Do you suppose that Ritter, Salazar (the senator who would said he would not support expanded domestic drilling at $10 a gallon) and the Dems learned a lesson in basic economics? Do you further suppose that they now understand that companies are tax collectors, not tax payers? Maybe they concluded that raising taxes leads to lower revenue? Of course not. Who did they blame? President Bush, of course. The Refugee hopes that Ritter is merely playing politics not just plain stupid.

The Refugee, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, has been pleasantly surprised by previous Democratic governors (ie., Dick Lamm and to a lesser extent Roy Romer.) However, The Refugee had low expectations of Ritter, expectations that Ritter continues to fail to achieve. This guy is terrible, and Colorado's tax coffers are suffering as a result.

Oil and Energy Posted by Boulder Refugee at August 15, 2008 12:01 PM