“Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan,” said President Kennedy, so we don’t want to claim too much credit for the demise of Senate Bill 159, but we can say that an association made up entirely of small-business owners carries a little more clout with lawmakers than other groups.

And every ounce of that clout was needed to stop the most economy-disrupting proposal to come around in ages. Among other things, SB 159 would have required the state’s  energy and carbon management commission to adopt rules to cease issuing new oil and gas permits before January 1, 2030.

In announcing the result of a special, one-question poll of NFIB Colorado members asking them, “Should Colorado ban oil and gas drilling by 2030?” State Director Tony Gagliardi, commenting on the 98% ‘No’ vote said, “It’s not difficult to see the incalculable negative ramifications of shutting down our energy producing industry. 2030 is a little more than five years away. Can anyone say for certain whether the electronic infrastructure expected to take its place will be ready by then?”

After the bill’s 5-2 rejection by the Senate Committee on Agriculture & Natural Resources on March 28, Gagliardi added, “I believe the weight of the opposition, including a nearly unanimous ‘No’ vote from Main Street, convinced committee members that they should not charge into a brave new world at the cost of severely damaging the current one they’re living in right now.”