Energy companies in Colorado are spending millions of dollars to derail a push by environmentalists to put measures on November’s ballot that would stifle oil and gas drilling in the state, according to a Reuters review of campaign finance records. Environmental groups are now gathering signatures for two statewide initiatives that would transfer regulatory control of oil and gas development to local governments and create more stringent setback requirements to keep oil and gas activities away from occupied structures. The state’s Supreme Court this year struck down fracking bans approved by voters in the cities of Fort Collins and Longmont. A study by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, a state agency tasked with encouraging energy development, found that 90 percent of the surface acreage in Colorado would be unavailable for oil and gas development under the […]