Today Director Murphy attended the Colorado Legislative Audit Committee hearing, and the Office of the State Auditor (OSA) published a report, Oil and Gas Reporting: Production, Emissions, and Severance Taxes, regarding its performance audit of oil and gas reporting administered by the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC), Colorado Department of Health and Environment (CDPHE), and the Department of Revenue (DOR).
OSA is an independent, nonpartisan agency in the Legislative Branch. OSA’s performance, financial, and IT audits provide the General Assembly, agencies, and the public with thorough, credible, and impartial assessments of the operation of state programs and the use of state and federal funds.
OSA performed 35 performance audits in 2025, and this audit of ECMC also audited CDPHE and DOR for similar information that the agencies collect and use. Specifically, its audit of ECMC was focused on certain components of ECMC’s reporting and enforcement procedures for the calendar year 2023.
Director Murphy accepted the audit’s findings and committed to implementing improved best practices. In summary, the report highlights that ECMC had 98% compliance for the submission of production reports and a 95% accuracy rate for reporting in Calendar Year 2023. Meanwhile, the audit identified areas of improvement regarding the administrative collection of data from a technology standpoint and the consistency by which ECMC enforces and collects conservation levies. These findings affirm strategic initiatives to improve data quality, data reporting, and stakeholder usability that have already been underway at ECMC, notably the COGIS Modernization project that moves ECMC's data from an antiquated (1999) system to a cloud-hosted solution.