A new state report shows that 60 percent of Colorado air pollution comes from one industry that the state doesn’t want to talk about.

Interview transcript adapted for web:

Alexis Kenyon: So, Kate, looking at this recent Colorado Toxic Air Contaminants report—or TAC report—I was just taken aback by how crazy these numbers were and how difficult they were to deny. 60 percent of air pollution across the entire state is from one industry: the oil and gas industry, and 45 percent of that is from Weld County.

Can you speak to those numbers? I just found them alarming.

Kate Merlin: Yeah, um, this is a really important topic. Thank you for looking into this. You know, our state has an oil and gas industry that is very economically productive. We do have money going back to a lot of our local governments.

And you mentioned how much of this is coming from Weld County, but I think what the public might not be aware of is how much outside of Weld County the oil and gas industry is starting to develop, including much closer to Denver and its suburbs. A substantial number of wells are being approved now in places like Adams County, Aurora, and farther south.

One of the things we saw in the cumulative impacts rulemaking—which was unfortunately such a failure at the state level—was the development in disproportionately impacted communities. We said, “How about we have some restrictions on drilling near people in disproportionately impacted communities like much of Aurora, which would qualify as such a community?”

The oil and gas industry went so far as to say that if they couldn’t drill within 2,000 feet of homes in these communities, it would be the death of the industry in Colorado. Their future growth depends on developing very close to homes in disproportionately impacted areas.

This is incredibly alarming, especially when you consider that the state is planning to triple the number of wells being drilled in the Northern Front Range—the North Front Range Denver Metro area. This area is already overburdened with an unsafe level of ozone pollution. The American Lung Association has criticized our air, calling it some of the worst among metro areas in the country. And that’s due mostly to the oil and gas industry.

Alexis Kenyon: What is so confusing about all of this is how the government and all these committees are egregiously patting themselves on the back for how much progress they’re making.

Kate Merlin: Correct. The state goes to great lengths to portray itself as enacting strong regulations, but, in reality, it doesn’t. It’s fairly egregious. Our most recent Rulemaking at the Oil and Gas Commission claimed they had set groundbreaking and health-protective regulations. They adopted 60 pages of regulations in this rulemaking.

But, I don’t think I’ve ever read 60 pages that said less. These rules will change essentially nothing on the ground.

For example, the oil and gas industry is the biggest source of Colorado’s ozone non-attainment. The state has admitted this in the past. However, they are allowing an increase in ozone pollution. The commission’s rules will allow the oil and gas industry to expand and add more wells in this non-attainment area.

Now, they’ll say they’re tying ozone-forming emissions to production, calling it an “intensity standard.” That’s a ratio of pollution to production. The state intends to address ozone intensity by increasing production, which will ultimately increase the total amount of ozone in the state.

It’s outrageous that they’re speaking out of both sides of their mouths about protecting communities and public health. It’s a shocking amount of greenwashing. The fact that our state is engaged in this level of greenwashing is extremely concerning. Who is looking out for the people here?

Alexis Kenyon: So, Kate, you played a major role in advocating for SB 19-181, a bill that passed in 2019. For people who don’t know, before 2019, the state didn’t have any laws requiring it to prioritize public health or environmental impacts when permitting oil and gas development.

In fact, the commission in charge of oil and gas was called the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. It was later renamed in 2023 to the Energy Carbon Management Commission. For the first time in the state’s history, it said, “Hey, you need to consider public health and environmental impacts when making rules about the industry.”

Since then, there has been a lot of monitoring, which makes sense. We need real data to understand the real impacts of the oil and gas industry in the state. But now we’re almost in 2025. It’s been years, and the data is in. A state that was once known for its clean air is now among the worst in the nation for air quality. It seems like we have all this data, and for some reason, we’re still just talking about monitoring.

Kate Merlin: That is correct. The Energy and Carbon Management Commission was given a directive, um, in SB 19-181 to evaluate and address cumulative impacts. And unfortunately, they’ve done an okay job at evaluating cumulative impacts. I think there’s a lot of room for improvement. But what they really have not done is adopt rules to address cumulative impacts.

We know what the cumulative impacts from oil and gas development are, and they include things like ozone in the Denver metro area, and they include things like impacts to wildlife out on the western slope. But the rules which the ECMC has adopted actually don’t put limits on these. They are not designed to eliminate or even reduce these impacts.

The Denver Metro North Front Range area has been in non-attainment for ozone, which means that we’ve exceeded federal health standards for ozone, uh, for, gosh, over 15 years. I mean, basically since the standard was written in 2008, we have not been in attainment. Um, but we should have been, frankly, because we’ve had so much improvement in things like our coal-fired power plants. We’ve reduced our dependence on coal by a lot.

Unfortunately, the oil and gas industry has taken up where the coal industry left off, and they’ve actually surpassed it. So this past year in 2024, we had the worst ozone non-attainment season in over a decade. We had higher ozone than we’ve had here for over a decade. And while our state is desperate to point at things that they can’t control, our state is pointing to trees as a large source of ozone, they’re pointing to China, they’re pointing to, um, lawnmowers.

Alexis Kenyon: Sorry to jump in, but they’re pointing to trees?

Kate Merlin: Yes.

Alexis Kenyon: How is that?

Kate Merlin: So, one of the talking points, which has been used by industry and, unfortunately, our state agencies, is that trees produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs). So in their respiration, trees release some volatile organic compounds. Have you ever walked through a forest on a beautiful day when you take a deep breath of air and you smell that forest smell and it smells good and like everything seems great in the world? Well, what you’re smelling is volatile organic compounds.

And that is true. However, what they fail to distinguish is a couple of things. First of all, the volatile organic compounds that these trees are emitting are not things like benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, and xylene. So they are technically volatile organic compounds and, you know, again, the state can’t regulate volatile organic compounds coming from the trees.

I think what’s discouraging to me is it’s one thing to hear the oil and gas association tell you that trees are causing the pollution problem, not the oil and gas industry. It’s very different when you hear it being repeated by people who are supposed to be working on behalf of the public.