DEFEND COLORADO Launches Fight to Protect Property Rights – At Opponents’ Capitol News Conference!

Defend Colorado took our mission to stand up against the extreme policies of anti-energy groups directly to their State Capitol news conference – using the opportunity to announce a landmark legal effort to protect the property rights of families with mineral rights in the City of Boulder. 

The occasion was the public announcement of a lawsuit by Colorado Rising aimed at reinstating the local fracking ban in Longmont – despite the statements by Gov. Jared Polis and other supporters of SB 181 that the legislation that the new law would not allow local governments to ban energy development. 

Defend Colorado used energy opponents’ political theater to stage an announcement of our own: we are working property owners in the City of Boulder to mount federal litigation to protect mineral rights that are being threatened by the city’s six-year “moratorium” on energy development.

“Families in Boulder face the threat of having property they have owned for a century or more taken from them as special interest groups overreach with their ideological agendas,” said Defend Colorado Executive Director Sean Duffy.  “There is a real cost to these families when government inappropriately and unfairly tramples on their basic property rights.  They’ve been the forgotten Coloradans in this political debate.  We will help them not only stand up for their rights, but fight back in federal court.”

A June decision by the U.S. Supreme Court creates a direct path for takings claims to be filed in federal court.   Defend Colorado believes that the decision in Knick v Township of Scott, Pennsylvania empowers local citizens in Boulder who are threatened with the loss of any value of their mineral rights to ask federal courts to step in. 

“The U.S. Supreme Court is showing itself to be increasingly sympathetic to the rights of property owners versus the heavy hand of big government,” Duffy said.  “Local government efforts in Boulder to just take citizens mineral rights without a dime of compensation is the kind of case that federal courts may indeed smile upon.”

While Boulder would be the target, the implications for other cities and counties would be the same: government cannot ban reasonable access to citizens’ property rights without compensation. 

To see the television coverage of our visit to the Capitol, click here.