The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness recently submitted a Protest to BLM on its Final Oil Shale PEIS.
BLM’s decision to revise oil shale decisions made in 2008 could have enormous impacts on domestic energy production. Specifically, The Government Accountability Office states, “The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.”[1] Nevertheless, BLM is now planning to reduce the amount of federal land available for oil shale development by 75%, with a 90% reduction in Colorado. BLM is seeking to effectively eliminate oil shale development in the United States without offering any compelling basis, except for a lawsuit[2] challenging BLM’s initial 2008 oil shale determinations.[3]
In the protest, the CRE argues:
1. The Decision to Revisit the Oil Shale PEIS is Arbitrary and Capricious
2. The Proposed Land Use Plan Amendments are Arbitrary and Capricious
3. The Proposed Land Use Plan Amendments Violate the 2005 Energy Policy Act
4. The BLM Conclusions Regarding Water Usage are not Based on Sound Science
5. BLM Has Failed to Comply with the Data Quality Act.
The CRE find its incomprehensible that oil shale offers the United States with the potential to extract over 1.5 trillion barrels of oil, an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves, yet BLM has drastically shifted its position on oil shale in only 4 years without a compelling reason. As part of its regulatory review process, the White House should reverse the unsubstantiated shift in policy by BLM regarding Oil Shale.
The Protest is available here: Oil Shale Protest – Center for Regulatory Effectiveness
[1] Government Accountability Office, ENERGY-WATER NEXUS A Better and Coordinated Understanding of Water Resources Could Help Mitigate the Impacts of Potential Oil Shale Development, page 1 (October 2010) available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/320/311896.pdf (emphasis added).
[2] Legal complaint, Colorado Environmental Coalition v. Salazar, p. 31-32 (civil action No. 1:09-cv-00085-jlk) (D. Col. 2011).
[3] BLM justifies its choice to reevaluate the land use plans with the 2012 PEIS by stating, “As part of a settlement agreement entered into by the United States to resolve the lawsuit and in light of new information that has emerged since the 2008 OSTS PEIS was prepared, the BLM has decided to take a fresh look at the land allocations analyzed in the 2008 OSTS PEIS and to consider excluding certain lands from future leasing of oil shale and tar sands resources.” BLM, Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and Possible Land Use Plan Amendments for Allocation of Oil Shale and Tar Sands Resources on Lands Administered by the Bureau of Land Management in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, p ES-3 (2012), available at http://ostseis.anl.gov/documents/peis2012/index.cfm
