Oil Shale News

From: CBS News

SALT LAKE CITY — The federal government is closing a public comment period on plans for oil shale development that have sharply cut public lands available for research and development projects.

The Bureau of Land Management has tentatively decided to lease about 460,000 acres of oil shale deposits for research and demonstration projects, down from 2 million acres the Bush administration planned to offer across Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

Oil-friendly interests are complaining that the BLM is making little land available with too many regulations. The new plans calls for opening another 91,000 acres for tar sands development, down from 431,000 acres the Bush administration planned to offer.

From: Post Independent

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — A Colorado public watchdog group has filed an open records request with Garfield County and several other counties across three states that took part in a closed-door meeting in Utah in late March to discuss federal lands oil shale policy.

“Our local county commissioners shouldn’t be traveling across state lines to meet in secret with industry lobbyists and attorneys,” Elena Nunez, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, said in a prepared statement issued Tuesday.

From: The Daily Sentinel

By Mike Wiggins

Mesa County commissioners on Monday blistered the Bureau of Land Management’s proposal to slash the amount of land potentially available for oil shale and tar sands development in the Rocky Mountain West, alleging the federal agency is irrationally capitulating to environmental groups and ignoring the input of local governments and other stakeholders.

In a unanimously approved, strongly worded resolution similar to ones adopted by Garfield and Rio Blanco counties, the board called upon the BLM to cease all activities related to the current draft environmental impact statement and extend the public comment period on the draft statement beyond the current May 4 deadline.

From: Denver Business Journal

Mesa County commissioners are criticizing the federal Bureau of Land Management to reduce the amount of land that could be open for oil shale and tar sands development, The Daily Sentinel reports.

The commissioners unanimously approved a resolution that claims the BLM has been “encumbered by a host of anti-oil shale pro-wilderness groups steering BLM’s every move.”

The Bush administration in 2008 called for leasing 2 million acres in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming for possible oil share development and 431,000 for tar sands development. The BLM proposed in February to reduce that acreage to 462,000 for oil shale and 91,000 for tar sands.

By: Cara Bayles

From: Daily Comet

BILOXI, Miss. — Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum tapped a chunk of oil shale against the podium at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum and Convention Center.

“Thanks to the Marcellus shale and the Utica shale, we’re seeing our economy growing again, and we’ve seen a tremendous reduction in natural-gas prices,” the former Pennsylvania senator told the audience of hundreds. “It’s pretty remarkable to think that you can get oil out of this, but through that hydraulic fracturing you can.”

The show-and-tell moment occurred during the first-ever Gulf Coast Energy Summit, organized by the Thibodaux-based Gulf Economic Survival Team and the Consumer Energy Alliance.

From: Green Prophet

While Israeli activists fight oil shale exploration, Jordan announces plans to explore oil shale next door.

While activists continue to fight against oil shale testing in Israel because of its potentially harmful environmental and social impacts, on the other side of the Dead Sea, Jordan has just announced its intention to explore oil-shale without any opposition from within its borders.

The Hashemite Kingdom sits on the third largest reserve of oil shale deposits, but the technology necessary to extract this fossil fuel safely is still undergoing rigorous testing in the United States and remains deeply controversial among environmentalists. Perhaps spurred on by chronic energy shortages, Jordan intends to go where no one else has been.

The last big oil shale* boom in the West busted on “Black Sunday” 1982. I was 11 years old, then, living in Western Colorado, and I can still remember my dad explaining the boom, the bust and the process necessary to get the “oil” out of the shale.

From:  The Republic (Columbus, Indiana)

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Garfield County commissioners are supporting a proposed Bureau of Land Management plan for oil shale development in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah.

Commissioners got an early look at the BLM’s alternative draft management proposal and voted unanimously this week to support it, The Daily Sentinel reported Friday (http://bit.ly/t2moK3 ).

The proposal would cut 421 square miles from the proposed 3,125 square miles allocated for possible oil shale development in the three states, Commissioner Tom Jankovsky said. The biggest area removed would be the 182-square-mile Adobe Town area inWyoming.