Cheney’s role in energy development, PILT program remembered

Dick Cheney’s roles in energy development nationally and locally, and in helping create the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program relied on by local governments with federal land, are being remembered with his recent passing.

The vice president in the administration of George W. Bush also served in the late 1990s as CEO and chairman of Halliburton, which helped develop and provide hydraulic fracturing services that were central to creating a national boom in oil and gas drilling across the country. That includes in the natural-gas-bearing sandstone formations that have been drilled in western Colorado’s Piceance Basin, and in shale formations in many other parts of the country.

Bush also has an oil and gas background, and his administration, with leadership by Cheney, sought to boost oil and