Amendment 82 is a stalking horse

caption: Huntsman using a stalking horse to hunt game

If you were not aware, Amendment 82 is a ballot initiative that will be voted on in Colorado during the mid-term elections in November 2026. On file with the Colorado legislature, it would make powering your home or business using methane ("natural gas") a legal right guaranteed by the Constitution of the State of Colorado. Amending the state constitution can done in three ways, one of which is the citizen-initiated route, which requires 5% of the votes cast for Secretary of State in the previous general election, and signatures from at least 2% of the registered voters in each of Colorado's 35 Senate districts. This has been done, which occurred with little fanfare, since that is exactly the strategy its backers, Advance Colorado, wanted. If 55 percent of Colorado voters vote 'Yes' in November, it will become a state constitutional amendment -- and then extremely difficult to undo.

The entire effort is hardly led by citizens, however. It was conceived of, financed by, and executed by Advance Colorado. a front group for the oil & gas industry with deep ties to the MAGA faction of the Republican Party. In other words, they are as bent on corrupting Colorado's state government, and dismantling its democracy, as much as the Trump administration is pursuing the same goals at the federal level. They gathered the necessary signatures --using paid signature collectors, having spent at least half a million bucks to get it done -- and submitted them back in June 2026.

Amendment 82 should be called out for the stalking horse that it is: a cover for the fossil fuel industry to prop up a dying technology. It is an outright abuse of the legal system that is attempting to block where market forces are irresistibly leading us: cheaper and cleaner renewable energy, free of the fossil fuels which are responsible for causing global warming. Market forces, if unobstructed, would be allowing people, cities and industries to convert their fossil fuel powered systems, for their homes, cars and office buildings, to cheaper electric energy, powered by wind, solar and batteries. Instead, the fossil fuel industry is sending out its minions (like Advance Colorado, which is exactly what they are) to do its bidding: to stop market forces dead in its tracks with the most extreme legal procedure possible: a state constitutional amendment.

Since when does it make sense to involve what should be a free market decision -- how to power your home -- in a state constitutional amendment? The very notion borders on the ludicrous; but given the ludicrous times in which was are living perhaps Advance Colorado senses an opening. If the American people elected such a ludicrous personality who is bold enough to deny climate change and defend his claim on the world stage, why not? (Even though everyone on that world stage is laughing at him behind his back, it would be safe to assume, I should think.)

But while the politics of our time may be ludicrous, the physical reality of climate change is not so whimsical. The historic plunge in Colorado’s snowpack this past winter (25 percent of normal...i.e. a 75 percent reduction), and the dramatic increase in forest fires across Canada, the American West, Europe and God knows where else in the northern hemisphere, testify to the crisis that now envelopes us. It will continue to get worse until the transition to renewable energy is complete.

Attempting to protect their profits through a state constitutional amendment is almost as perverted as the infamous ‘Halliburton Loophole’ that was slipped into the 2005 Energy Policy Act by Dick Cheney and the fossil fuel lawyers who helped him write it. Noticed by almost no one at the time, it ensured that fracking would not be regulated by the EPA – and delayed the transition to renewable energy while extreme climatic events intensified with each passing year ever since.

I hope that all Coloradoans will have the sense to see through this cynical charade of a campaign – and overwhelming reject this abuse of the initiative system, which was intended for real issues from real citizens, not political astroturf groups like Advance Colorado. 

Rick Casey