2023 Colorado Revised Statutes › Title 33 - PARKS AND WILDLIFE (§§ 33-1-101 — 33-61-107) › GREAT OUTDOORS PROGRAM (§§ 33-60-101 — 33-61-107) › Article 61 - PRODUCTION FEES FOR WILDLIFE AND LAND REMEDIATION (§§ 33-61-101 — 33-61-107) › Section 33-61-101 - Legislative declaration

(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).
Added by 2024 Ch. 184,§ 6, eff. 5/16/2024.