(Credit: Associated Press)
At least ten rural Colorado counties are taking aggressive steps
to form a 51st state,
saying their interests are not being met by moves to regulate the oil and gas
industry, increase renewable energy, and better regulate guns. Organizers in
Kansas and Nebraska are also interested in joining the state they call “North
Colorado.”
Organizers met this week to
draw up boundaries of the new state, as part of an ambitious schedule to draft
a ballot initiative by August 1, and get a proposal before the voters in
November. Congress must approve admission of a new state into the Union. But
the U.S. Constitution also requires that secession of parts of
any existing state be approved both by the voters and legislature of that
state. This means Colorado would have to approve of the counties’ secession, as
would Kansas and Nebraska if parts of those states wanted to join. One of the
ten counties that initiated the movement, Weld County, is larger than Delaware and Rhode
Island, according to a county commissioner.
One of the laws that
movement representatives say “broke the camel’s back” requires rural energy
cooperatives to get 20 percent of their energy
from renewable sources by 2020. The current goal is ten percent.
While Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed the bill into law, he alsosigned an executive order committing to make an independent assessment of whether the 20
percent requirement is feasible, and to revisit the legislation next session if
need be. The organizers also cite several failed bills to regulate the oil and
gas industry that would have increased fines for violations of state law, and imposed other measures to address the fast-increasing number of both
wells and oil spills and contaminations in
Colorado over the last several years.
Proponents of the movement
say the legislature is not recognizing its “main economic drivers, agriculture
and energy.” But these energy-heavy rural counties are also particularly
vulnerable to environmental degradation, which is why some residents have voiced
strong opposition to the movement. “I don’t want be in a 51st state,”
Washington County resident Steve Frey told the local CBS affiliate. “I don’t want any part of their
fracking that they’re doing in Weld
County.”
The last state to secede from another was West Virginia in 1863. Maine, Vermont, and
Kentucky were also formed from other states.
No comments:
Post a Comment