DENVER – Gas industry proponents have enlisted a civil-rights group in their fight over Colorado’s proposed oil and gas rules, claiming the rules will hurt the poor and minorities.

 

“We feel that the economic environment that’s created by regulations in fact creates a de facto regressive tax on poor consumers,” said Niger Innis, spokes-man for the New York-based Congress on Racial Equality. CORE was founded in 1942 and played a part in the struggle against racism and Jim Crow laws in the South. Since then, it has embraced conservative causes.

Innis visited Denver on Tuesday to join Sen. Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, and Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, in announcing a resolution questioning the cost of proposed rules by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

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