GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard has joined other Republican members of Congress in pushing for more domestic energy production by removing barriers to oil shale leasing in Colorado and other parts of the region.
A bill introduced Thursday by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., would repeal a one-year moratorium on approval of final regulations for commercial oil shale leases on federal land. It would also allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Colorado’s other senator, Democrat Ken Salazar, pushed the one-year ban that prevents the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from using federal funds to draft final regulations for commercial leases.
Allard voted year against the $555 billion spending bill that included the ban last year.
“U.S. oil shale resources alone exceed 2 trillion barrels of potential supply,” Allard said in a written statement. “We in Congress should not be preventing this kind of progress.”
Oil shale underlying western Colorado, parts of Utah and southwest Wyoming is thought to contain 1 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels, or three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Of that, roughly 800 billion barrels are considered recoverable.
The trick is extracting the oil from the rock, something that’s been tried on and off for nearly a century. The shale, or kerogen, is a precursor that wasn’t buried deeply enough or naturally processed long enough to complete the transformation to oil.
Turning the shale to oil requires heating it above ground after mining, or in the ground, a process called in situ or “in place.”
The Bureau of Land Management is writing an analysis of the potential impacts of commercial oil shale development, not expected for at least 10 years. The BLM approved federal leases for oil shale research and development to three companies in Colorado and one in Utah.
Salazar is among the Colorado officials who’ve urged the federal government to move cautiously on oil shale because of the potential impacts. Water providers along Colorado’s Front Range have warned that commercial-scale development could drain up to 15 percent of western Colorado’s water supply.
The last attempt to mine oil shale collapsed in the early 1980s when oil prices and government subsidies dropped. Northwest Colorado’s economy was left reeling after Exxon laid off 2,200 people in one day in May 1982 at its oil shale project in nearby Parachute.
Stephanie Valencia, Salazar’s spokeswoman, said the policy on oil shale “should be one that is judicious and responsible and that takes into account the communities that are affected.”
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter wrote to the BLM in March that the agency’s draft environmental analysis on commercial oil shale development doesn’t adequately address the potential impacts on water and air quality, water supplies, human health or western Colorado’s economy. The document “is woefully inadequate in assessing the needs and impacts of an industrial complex significantly greater than the infrastructure that exists today,” he added.
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Information from: Post Independent,
