By David O. Williams

From Texas to Wyoming to Pennsylvania, a gusher of environmental rules is facing the natural gas industry in the coming months and years, putting Colorado ahead of the regulatory curve when it implemented strict new drilling regs in the spring of 2009, according to the state’s top oil and gas official.

“So the regulatory issues that we worked through over the past couple of years with our rulemaking are issues they’re just beginning to tackle,” said David Neslin, director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. “There will be additional requirements in Pennsylvania; Wyoming is looking at new requirements applicable to fracking [hydraulic fracturing]; and Texas is looking at new requirements.”

A favorite campaign mantra for Colorado Republicans looking to topple Democrats in both the State Legislature and the governor’s race this fall is that the drilling regulations pushed through by Gov. Bill Ritter in 2008 and early 2009 eliminated thousands of high-paying energy sector jobs and sent workers scurrying to greener natural gas pastures in other states.

But looming regulations in other top gas-producing states may create a level of uncertainty and political animosity that will make Colorado seem stable by comparison. And statistics indicate the regulatory certainty in Colorado is already resulting in more drilling activity.

The new Colorado rules made it one of the few states dealing with hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” – a process in which water, sand and undisclosed chemicals are injected under extremely higher pressure deep into gas wells to crack open tight formations and free up more gas.

Environmentalists and some scientists and politicians are concerned the process itself and then the resulting “produced” water can contaminate groundwater and drinking water supplies. Two-term Democratic Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal has ordered the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (WOGCC) to find out what chemicals are going into the ground in order to keep EPA regulators at bay.

“It’s the direction we were given, and as long as he’s my boss that’s the direction we’re headed,” said WOGCC supervisor Tom Doll said, according to the Casper Star-Tribune. “The bottom line is we don’t have the detail that the governor feels we need to have in the files to prove to EPA we are protecting groundwater in the state.” A decision on any new fracking rules was recently deferred until June.