BLM Oil Shale

Fro: The Daily Sentinel

By Gary Harmon
Thursday, August 30, 2012

The Bureau of Land Management today approved two leases that will will allow companies to test possible ways of extracting petroleum from the Piceance Basin of western Colorado.

ExxonMobil Exploration Co. and Natural Soda Holdings Inc., will test their technologies that would allow the companies to test technologies to heat solid oil shale underground to release and capture kerogen, a petroleum-like substance.  Each company will have a 160-acre lease in Rio Blanco County about 35 miles southwest of Meeker.

Editor’s  Note:  The  record  for  the EIS  that the BLM is developing  for oil shale development  demonstrates that adequate safeguards are in place for the protection of the quality and quanity of  water. In addition the decision presently before BLM is to only designate the acreage available for future exploration and development.  Any development on the said land must go through a very comprehensive permitting process. See following article :  The Stages of Environmental Analysis

Northern  Colorado Business  Report

Oil shale development should take a backseat to water conservation, environmental groups, business owners, farmers, ranchers and others wrote the Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday.

From: Wall Street Journal

Interior gives an environmental pass to its business friends.

Who says President Obama isn’t pro-business? The trick is being a business he likes.

Several weeks ago in a remarkable but little-noticed policy directive, the Interior Department announced that it will allow construction permitting on 285,000 acres of public land in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah for solar energy projects. Even more remarkable, Interior said that energy firms can petition Interior to build solar installations “on approximately 19 million acres”—a larger land mass than Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

From: Billings Gazette

As veterans of the American armed services, the importance of ensuring America’s natural security resonates with us very deeply. We once wore the uniform of our country every day with the mission to keep our country safe and secure. Today, we are concerned about how our weakness in energy security leaves us weak on the national security front.

On July 11, we, along with other distinguished American veterans from 26 states, flew to Washington, D.C.

From: ABC4

VERNAL, Utah (AP) – The Uintah CountyCommission is acknowledging a “technical” violation of the state’s open-meeting law when it met to privately discuss a federal plan for oil shale development with officials from Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

Utah law generally requires 24-hour notice be given before public meetings. The Deseret News reports that in court records filed Wednesday, county attorney Jonathan Stearmer said notice for the 10 a.m. March 27 meeting on oil shale was posted at 10:04 a.m. March 26.

Vernal resident Sandy Hansen had filed a lawsuit alleging the March meeting was illegal.