“I am a family physician in Denver, and much of my work is shaped by the air my patients breathe.” That is why she says she is voting no on Amendment 82, Colorado, a proposed constitutional change that would add a right to buy natural gas for cooking and heating.
The measure would add two sentences to the Colorado Constitution. If voters approve it, consumers would gain a constitutional right to buy gas, and distributors and utilities would gain a right to sell it to homes and businesses.
Colorado Constitution and gas rights
The physician argues the amendment is unnecessary because buying and using gas is already legal in Colorado. She says a no vote would not change anything about a furnace in a basement or a range in a kitchen.
That point goes to the practical effect of the proposal: it would not create a new product or a new right to use gas. Instead, it would place that right in the Colorado Constitution, where future disputes would start from a different legal baseline.
Amendment 82 and public health
She also links the proposal to health concerns. The source says the oil and gas industry is responsible for the majority of Colorado’s air pollution, and that burning methane indoors releases pollutants like nitrogen dioxide.
Supporters describe gas as clean and affordable in mailers. The source says nothing in Amendment 82 makes gas any cleaner or more affordable, and nothing in it requires any company to lower prices.
55 percent threshold
The amendment would be the first and only of its kind anywhere in the country, according to the source. No other state has put a right to methane gas or any other fossil fuel into its constitution.
If Amendment 82 passes, undoing it would take another statewide vote of 55 percent. That means the measure could be harder to reverse than an ordinary policy choice, even though Colorado already allows people to buy and use natural gas.
“That is why I am voting no on Amendment 82, and why I am asking my neighbors to do the same.”
