With less than a week left in office, the Bush administration announced Wednesday that new and bigger oil-shale leases would be offered in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah.
Several companies have expressed interest in applying, said Matt Spangler, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Land Management, though he declined to identify them.
The announcement was decried by environmentalists who called it a last-ditch attempt by the outgoing president to influence energy policy for years to come.
“This an eleventh-hour effort by the Bush administration to issue pocket commercial oil-shale leases before leaving office,” said Chase Huntley, energy policy adviser for The Wilderness Society.
Companies have 45 days to submit applications — that would appear to place the decision on whether to issue the leases with the Obama administration and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar if he is confirmed as secretary of interior.
Salazar has previously stated his opposition to the oil-shale program, calling it “a giveaway” and “a fire sale.” His spokesman said he was unavailable to comment Wednesday.
Salazar’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy Committee is set for today.
Companies can seek leases on parcels up to 640 acres anywhere in the 1.9 million acres of public land set aside for shale development in the three states, according to BLM spokesman Spangler.
The BLM estimates there could be 800 million to 1 billion barrels of shale oil that leaseholders could try to extract with still-developing technology.
In 2005, the BLM issued six 160-acre research, development and demonstration leases to Shell Exploration and Production, Chevron Inc. and two smaller companies.
While the new leases also are for research and development, the BLM said it had determined that 640 acres probably will provide sufficient reserves for a commercial operation.
The companies will have the option of converting the leases from 10-year research leases to 20-year commercial leases.
U.S. Sen. Mark Udall said in a statement that he was “concerned about the large acreage size of these leases and the option to convert these experimental leases into commercial operations.”
“First, we need to determine whether it is technologically, economically and environmentally feasible to move forward on commercial oil-shale development,” Udall said.
After a congressional ban on commercial development ended in August, the BLM has moved quickly to promote development.
A Sept. 4 environmental impact statement was followed by Nov. 17 commercial-development rules and a Nov. 28 overhaul of six regional management plans to accommodate oil-shale projects.
“This is no way to develop a program of this scale,” said Suzanne O’Neil, chairwoman of the Colorado Wildlife Federation.
State officials responded cautiously to the BLM notice.
“We have not yet had a chance to examine the details of this new leasing effort by the Interior Department,” Mike King, deputy director of the state Department of Natural Resources, said in a statement.
“But Colorado has always supported research and development efforts . . . to tap our oil-shale reserves,” King said.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
