DENVER - In the race to be Colorado's next governor, Republicans continue trying to tie the Democrats' new candidate, Mayor John Hickenlooper, to Gov. Bill Ritter, whom both are trying to replace.
While Hickenlooper has yet to directly respond to his likely GOP opponent, Scott McInnis, but, in his comments on the campaign trail, he has been increasingly critical of Ritter, who helped shepherd the mayor into the race upon his surprise exit in January.
And don't think Ritter hasn't noticed.
Friday, In an interview with FOX 31 anchor Ron Zappolo slated to air Sunday night on "Zappolo's People", Ritter fired back at the mayor's comments, reported Thursday by the Denver Post, that he had sided with environmentalists when crafting new oil and gas regulations.
"I thought that was a pretty bad mischaracterization of what happened," Ritter said.
"Everybody was in the room, and we worked really hard for a very long time to actually bring together those people who sort of represented drilling interests, the oil and gas folks; and there are people out there who absolutely disagree with the way we did it. Certainly, the environmentalists were in the room, but it was a long discussion, it was, I think 6,000 different pages of testimony."
The new oil and gas regulations took effect a year ago, after more than 6,000 hours of public hearings, testimony and deliberations.
In speaking to the South Metro Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Hickenlooper called the process "flawed", according to the account reported in the Post.
"What happened was, the environmentalists went way overboard, I think, and pushed very hard -- I shouldn't say overboard, I'll get myself in trouble -- but they pushed very hard for certain things they thought were very important," Hickenlooper reportedly said. "The oil and gas people weren't in the room. They felt betrayed, so they pushed back really hard and all of a sudden the environmentalists felt they had been betrayed."
Ritter said that reading the remarks "got [his] dander up."
"I didn't react all that well to that because, actually, I've taken a little bit of grief for [the rules], and I think it was such a right thing for the state," he said.
"When we work with natural gas producers to get to a place where we improve that market, I feel this great comfort in being able to do that because we've written these rules that protect wildlife and they protect air and water and actually protect communities in a way differently before the rules.
"And I'll have a conversation with the mayor. Because I think it's important that what's said about how we went about things is not mis-characterized."
While Hickenlooper has yet to directly respond to his likely GOP opponent, Scott McInnis, but, in his comments on the campaign trail, he has been increasingly critical of Ritter, who helped shepherd the mayor into the race upon his surprise exit in January.
And don't think Ritter hasn't noticed.
Friday, In an interview with FOX 31 anchor Ron Zappolo slated to air Sunday night on "Zappolo's People", Ritter fired back at the mayor's comments, reported Thursday by the Denver Post, that he had sided with environmentalists when crafting new oil and gas regulations.
"I thought that was a pretty bad mischaracterization of what happened," Ritter said.
"Everybody was in the room, and we worked really hard for a very long time to actually bring together those people who sort of represented drilling interests, the oil and gas folks; and there are people out there who absolutely disagree with the way we did it. Certainly, the environmentalists were in the room, but it was a long discussion, it was, I think 6,000 different pages of testimony."
The new oil and gas regulations took effect a year ago, after more than 6,000 hours of public hearings, testimony and deliberations.
In speaking to the South Metro Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Hickenlooper called the process "flawed", according to the account reported in the Post.
"What happened was, the environmentalists went way overboard, I think, and pushed very hard -- I shouldn't say overboard, I'll get myself in trouble -- but they pushed very hard for certain things they thought were very important," Hickenlooper reportedly said. "The oil and gas people weren't in the room. They felt betrayed, so they pushed back really hard and all of a sudden the environmentalists felt they had been betrayed."
Ritter said that reading the remarks "got [his] dander up."
"I didn't react all that well to that because, actually, I've taken a little bit of grief for [the rules], and I think it was such a right thing for the state," he said.
"When we work with natural gas producers to get to a place where we improve that market, I feel this great comfort in being able to do that because we've written these rules that protect wildlife and they protect air and water and actually protect communities in a way differently before the rules.
"And I'll have a conversation with the mayor. Because I think it's important that what's said about how we went about things is not mis-characterized."
