Oil and gas companies and their supporters have poured $20.3 million since August into a campaign to defeat a Colorado ballot initiative that would limit new drilling in populated areas, according to state financial filings released on Tuesday. Colorado, the sixth largest and one of the fastest growing U.S. oil producing states, votes on Nov. 6 on a citizens’ petition that would require new wells be at least 2,500 feet (762 m) from homes, schools and parks. The initiative, which oil-producing,834 signatures to get a spot on the ballot, was aided in part by the deaths of two men last year in an explosion caused by gas leaking from an abandoned well near a Firestone, Colorado home. The […]