The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) promotes the responsible development of Colorado’s oil and gas natural resource. In order to ensure the efficient exploration and production of oil and gas resources in an environmentally consistent manner, COGCC decided to implement an eForm (electronic form) permitting process. Based on previous experience in electronic form applications, project manager Marc Fine realized that in order to create an expandable and maintainable system, eForm would need to allow COGCC staff to easily add new forms without hard-coding.

The Silverlight Web application enables processing industry permit applications, data-sharing with sister state and Federal agencies, and providing opportunity for public comment. eForm can also be used for collecting permit applications, completion reports, sundry notices, and oil and gas production and injection reports.

eForm allows industry operators to submit regulatory forms over the Internet, thereby eliminating paper forms that must be mailed to the various state offices and manually re-keyed. These electronic submissions help reduce processing time and allow for improved data to be available to the staff members who are making regulatory decisions. Within some state agencies, a significant reduction in time to issue a permit to drill may be achieved.

Recently, Colorado’s eForm permitting was selected as a finalist in the National Association of State Chief Information Officers ( NASCIO)’s 2010 Recognition Awards of Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology in State Government "Digital Government: Government to Business" category.