DENVER — President Donald Trump is pledging to increase America's oil and gas production during his second term, but his pledge is getting mixed reactions in oil-rich Colorado.
Some people are hopeful the plan will lead to an economic boom, along with more jobs. Others worry the president’s plan will shift the country away from clean energy sources.
Just three miles from the heart of downtown Denver, lies a neighborhood that some say feels forgotten.
“I call it Colorado and Denver’s dirty little secret,” said Harmony Cummings. “No one realizes how bad the pollution is here.”
The Globeville-Elyria-Swansea (GES) neighborhood was named one of the most polluted zip codes in the country in a 2017 study.
“It's on two EPA superfund sites from the smelters that were there earlier in the last century,” said Cummings. “But today, it's surrounded by highways, railroads, a gas plant, the Suncor refinery, Purina, asphalt, and 80 other industrial areas.”
Cummings is a former oil and gas industry worker.
“I spent eight years working in the oil and gas industry and it was my job to calculate profits and pay invoices and track inventory,” Cummings said. “Most people in my position never leave their office, but because of the projects we were working on, they took me to scores of fracking sites across the country where I saw and felt and smelled what it felt like to be in these impacted communities. But then I was also seeing the profits made by a few and who was actually paying the cost.”
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These days, Cumming is on a different mission as an environmental activist.
“I feel a very strong need to repent for the things that I was a part of, which is why I am an environmental organizer and activist today,” said Cummings.
A few years ago, she opened the Green House Connection Center in the GES neighborhood as a gathering space for community members.
“We pair music, movement, and the arts with elevating community voice, environmental policy work and healing,” said Cummings.
Hollywood legend and environmental activist Jane Fonda paid the center a visit in 2024.
But keeping the center going takes resources.
“Funding is definitely the biggest concern for small organizations like us,” said Cummings.
She said her team spent countless hours applying for EPA grants. But her hopes of being approved quickly faded when Trump took office, and his team started pausing federal funding for many climate projects.
“We were on a call with the EPA last month about some other grant programs that were coming on and I’m like, 'Is this really gonna come to fruition? Should we continue?’” said Cummings. “To me [it] feels like a waste of time.”
Federal courts have since ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze some of the funding, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty about which programs will receive money.
Kelly Nordini, who leads the largest environmental organization in the state of Colorado, said it’s not just the funding freeze.
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“I think in general they're looking backwards rather than looking forward,” said Nordini.
Nordini is worried about Trump’s executive actions to rollback clean energy production and increase oil and gas production.
“We are already at high levels of oil and gas production,” said Nordini.
In 2024, the U.S. produced a record 13.4 million barrels of oil per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
It’s expected to surpass that in 2025 and 2026.
Despite a decline in shale gas production, the U.S. also remained the world’s top natural gas producer in 2024 for the 15th straight year.
“Really ,what we see the rest of the world doing is looking to evolve and get ahead of the curve and move in the direction of solar and wind,” said Nordini. “Looking backwards is not gonna be a good energy policy for this country.”
Chelsie Miera, the executive director of West Slope Colorado Oil & Gas Association, which represent oil and natural gas companies in western Colorado, see opportunity in Trump’s plan.
“I think it takes all of us to create the energy required for Americans to not just survive but thrive,” Miera said.
She said Trump’s moves to open more federal lands for oil and gas exploration, in particular, is a win for American businesses and consumers.
“Producing our oil and natural gas resources here in the U.S., and specifically in Colorado, makes a whole lot of sense,” said Miera. “We produce it safer, cleaner, better than anywhere else in the world.”
During his confirmation hearing, U.S. energy secretary Chris Wright, a former Denver oil executive, said he would work tirelessly to implement Trump’s energy agenda.
“The security of our nation begins with energy,” Wright said. “Previous administrations have viewed energy as a liability instead of the immense national asset that it is. To compete globally, we must expand energy production including commercial nuclear and liquefied natural gas and cut the cost of energy for Americans.”
As for Cummings, she plans to keep fighting for communities like GES and against the oil and gas industry.
She still has friends in the industry and people she respects.
“It's important to go hard on systems and soft on people,” said Cummings. “But there are the people at the very, very top who absolutely don't care about ethics, the environment, rules, regulations. They only care about making more money.”
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