Colorado Towns Await Vote On Drilling Tax Proposal

DENVER (AP) -- A turf war between Colorado's local governments and oil and gas companies is heating up.

A Republican House committee is expected to vote Wednesday on a measure that would take severance taxes from local governments that enact drilling moratoriums. The bill was proposed after local governments and the oil and gas regulators supposedly settled their differences and agreed not to push for legislation this year.

The dispute is over who has the ability to regulate drilling, the state or local governments where the wells are drilled. Oil and gas companies say state supremacy over drilling is under attack from local officials who don't know what they're doing. The locals insist they should be allowed to issue moratoriums to find out more about drilling's effects on local water and other resources.

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