Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a report (pdf) detailing the wasted opportunities, even as oil and gas executives claim the Obama administration is thwarting domestic energy development. The report added that 7,000 approved permits for drilling on federal and Indian lands are also unused.

Thompson Divide in Colorado is just one area where industry wants to drill despite the sentiments of nearby residents. (Photo courtesy of Save Thompson Divide)

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, and his Republican colleagues have aggressively pushed for more federal lands to be opened to oil and gas drilling and for continued oil shale research. The Interior has resisted those efforts, recently scaling back the amount of acreage available to oil shale development.

Last year, American oil production reached the highest level in nearly a decade and natural gas production reached an all-time high. Salazar said that America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since President Obama took office. The United States has cut net imports of oil by 10 percent – or a million barrels a day – in the last year alone, the report stated, adding that the nation’s refining sector was a net exporter last year for the first time in 60 years.

The report came as Interior’s Bureau of Land Management announced nominations and comments on available tracts to be considered for its scheduled November 2012 oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska – the second sale since Obama directed Interior to conduct annual oil and gas lease sales in the reserve. The BLM offered 3 million acres in the 2011 sale.

The Obama administration had been pushing back against industry claims that it hasn’t done enough to develop domestic energy. One week ago, on the day Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney dogged Obama’s energy policies at a campaign stop in Colorado, Salazar announced the approval of 3,675 new natural gas wells in Utah. The League of Conservation Voters and Priorities USA Action, meanwhile, claim Romney is “in the tank for Big Oil,” coloring him as the “$200 million man” because the Koch brothers have pledged to spend that amount to elect a Republican.

American Petroleum President and CEO Jack Gerard called the administration’s report a political ploy designed to distract American voters from the administration’s “failed” energy policy.

“Once again, the administration is trotting out claims about idle leases to divert attention from the fact it has been restricting oil and natural gas development, leasing less often, shortening lease terms, and going slow on permit approvals—actions which have undermined public support for the administration on energy,” Gerard said. “It is also increasing or threatening to increase industry’s development costs through higher taxes, higher royalty rates, and higher minimum lease bids.”

The BLM, however, continues to clear its backlog of oil and gas permits, issuing more new drilling permits than applications received. In 2011, the agency processed 5,000 permits compared to 4,278 applications received, the report said, adding the rate of permitting is at its highest level since 2002.

Bill Eikenberry, a third-generation Wyoming rancher and former associate state director of the BLM in Wyoming, suggested lawmakers should “step up incentives which require oil and gas companies to develop drilling permits and leases” that Interior approves.

“I’ve got a real problem with the oil and gas industry asking for more giveaways like cutting clean water protections that protect agriculture when they don’t use what they already have,” he said.

While the oil and gas industry and Republican lawmakers place an emphasis on the economic importance of public lands, there is also mounting evidence that keeping those same lands free of drilling can be a financial boon to communities who rely on them for tourism and recreation.

A survey conducted for the Small Business Majority released Tuesday showed that 63 percent of small business owners in Colorado say access to protected public lands and outdoor spaces is a major part of why they set up operations in the state. Nearly three quarters of them support the Obama administration’s ‘all-of-the-above’ energy policy and two-thirds of them support Sen. Mark Udall’s proposal to better protect Browns Canyon and the Arkansas River Valley.

Last fall, over 100 economists — including 10 from Colorado — wrote President Obama and Congress urging them to protect more national parks, national monuments and wilderness areas.

“The rivers, lakes, canyons, and mountains found on public lands serve as a unique and compelling backdrop that has helped to transform the western economy from a dependence on resource extractive industries to growth from in-migration, tourism, and modern economy sectors such as finance, engineering, software development, insurance, and health care,” they wrote. “Increasingly, entrepreneurs are basing their business location decisions on the quality of life in an area. Businesses are recruiting talented employees by promoting access to beautiful, nearby public lands.”

“He stopped in almost every week and when he came in one particular Friday, I asked him how things were going and he said they’d never been better,” Bacon, 82, recalled last night. “He was expecting a group from Japan to take a tour that weekend. The following Sunday I was out in front of my house trimming the hedge — I had attended church earlier that morning — when my wife came out and said, ‘You won’t believe what I just heard on the news: Exxon is shutting down its operation here.’”

That day on May 2, 1982, became known as “Black Sunday,” when Exxon laid off 2,200 oil shale workers on Colorado’s Western Slope. The Colony Project, as it was called, had such a profound impact on the region that when Exxon walked away, small businesses in the area quickly mothballed, entire towns emptied out, there was a run on a local bank, and a bank president committed suicide.

“The best business to be in at the time would have been the moving business,” said Bacon, noting that thousands of residents fled the Grand Valley, which without warning was left in dire straits.

“It was total chaos. There was a big boom and an even bigger bust,” said Andrew Gulliford, a history professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango who authored Boomtown Blues: Colorado Oil Shale. “For many people, it’s a sobering event they look back on much like John F. Kennedy’s assassination — what were they doing? – but unlike with JFK’s assassination, they had to put their lives back together.”

It took a decade before the region bounced back. Now the Grand Valley’s economy is far more diversified. The outdoor recreation industry, organic farmers and vintners all depend on its environs.

Some of the locals who stuck around slapped “Exxon Sucks Rocks” bumper stickers on their cars and trucks, referring to the technology that heats shale rock and sand to extract organic kerogen, or fossilized algae, and refine it into synthetic fuel. Despite trying for nearly a century, engineers have so far been unable to make oil shale — not to be confused with shale oil — commercially viable.

Chevron is the latest to abandon oil shale in Colorado. The company was one of just three to hold oil shale leases in the state. Royal Dutch Shell and AMSO are the other two. Chevron, which began amassing acreage in Colorado for oil shale research back in the 1930s, decided it had other priorities.

An in-situ oil shale research project in Colorado. (USGS photo).

The resource’s potential keeps companies coming back too. Earlier this year Shell said it produced 1,700 barrels of oil from an oil shale project on private land in western Colorado and it recently broke ground on its first project on Bureau of Land Management property. A company executive recently declared that Shell, which began researching oil shale in 1981, is making “significant progress.”

Those who have seen this play out before are urging decision-makers to proceed with caution.

“I don’t think anybody knows exactly how this is going to end,” Bacon said. “If it really works out, it would be a tremendous boon, but we thought that was going to happen in the 1980s and it didn’t. Oil shale was going to be a big thing in the 1920s. Several times they got excited and it just didn’t gel.”

A new report, Oil Shale: A Century of Failure, from the Checks and Balances Project (pdf) details the devastation oil shale has had on communities. The Checks and Balances report comes as the BLM is closing its public comment period on its new oil-shale development plan (pdf).

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, sponsored the amendment, which failed 41-57. If approved, it would have also green-lighted construction of the controversial Keystone pipeline project.

A in-situ oil shale research project in Colorado. (USGS photo).

The senatorial smackdown comes after the House passed a similar bill in February, as part of Speaker Boehner’s much-maligned transportation package. U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, crafted the oil shale legislation, which runs counter to the Department of Interior’s plan to dramatically scale back available federal land for that type of energy exploration.

Oil shale is not the same as shale oil, which is oil trapped in rock formations. Oil shale doesn’t contain any oil at all and instead holds kerogen, or fossilized algae, that requires an extensive heating process for it to be extracted from the rock and refined into oil. Environmentalists strongly oppose oil shale as an energy source because of its dirty emissions and the vast amount of water it requires.

The Congressional Budget Office projected the oil shale bill would have no real positive effect on government revenue and over 10 years, it could leave the highway trust fund $78 billion in debt.

Days after the House passed the bill, Chevron announced it was divesting its oil shale research in Colorado to pursue more profitable projects. For now, U.S. oil shale is not commercially viable.

The Senate’s denial was the first time in four years it has voted on Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling. As for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, President Obama has denied it for the time being but Republicans have been trying to push it through every chance they get. The pipeline would transport oil from Canada’s oil sands through the United States to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

Shell in-situ oil shale research project in Rio Blanco County (USGS photo).

“Water is the defining resource in the West,” Mike Chiropolos, chief counsel for Western Resource Advocates, told reporters on a conference call this week. “There is an enormous uncertainty of what the impacts are of utilizing large quantities of that supply.”

The report, “Oil Shale 2050 (pdf), comes in advance of the Bureau of Land Management’s meetings in Colorado and Utah next week that ask for public feedback to the Department of Interior’s plan to dramatically scale back the acreage of lands available for oil shale and tar sands development. Federal officials are proposing to cut the Bush-era oil leasing inventory from 1.9 million acres to 462,000 for oil shale and from 431,000 acres to 91,000 for tar sands.

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, however, is sponsoring H.R. 3408, the “Pioneers Act,” which would revive the Bush-era plan to open vast amounts of public lands in Utah, Wyoming and western Colorado to oil shale and tar sands production. His bill made it out of the House Committee on Natural Resources last month, and House Speaker John Boehner has said oil shale revenues will partly pay for national transportation projects in the next five years.

Oil shale production, however, has yet to be proven commercially viable.

Oil shale is not to be confused with shale oil, which is oil trapped in rock formations. Shale oil only recently became a moneymaker as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” techniques have proliferated. Oil shale, in contrast, doesn’t actually contain oil; it contains kerogen, or fossilized algae, locked in rock that requires an extensive heating process for it to be extracted and refined into oil.

Just weeks ago, Chevron abandoned its federal oil shale leases in Colorado to focus on more feasible energy plays — the latest in a long list of oil shale projects gone bust. The most infamous is Exxon’s exit from the massive Colony oil shale project 30 years ago on “Black Sunday” that left communities in western Colorado in economic ruin.

The resource’s potential keeps companies coming back. Shell recently said it had produced 1,700 barrels of oil from an oil shale project on private land in western Colorado and that it is now going to break ground on oil shale development on BLM land. The world’s most extensive deposits are in the Green River Formation, which underlies western Colorado, eastern Utah, and southwestern Wyoming.

“The history of oil shale is, quite simply, a recurring period of hype followed by bust. Interspersed amongst these cycles, and fueling dreams of striking it rich, are a litany of politicians, speculators, and news stories playing up oil shale’s great promise,” reads the Western Resource Advocates report.

The report draws comparisons between one company’s recent claim that by 2025 in Utah it will be producing 50,000 barrels of oil per day. In 1980, Exxon claimed that by 2010 it would be producing 10 million barrels of oil per day from oil shale. Exxon’s project went bust two years later.

Western Resource Advocates also notes that oil shale production — one of the dirtier forms of energy — would hinder goals to curb carbon emissions. The group says that water in the Colorado River Basin is projected to decrease anywhere from 5 percent to 20 percent by 2050 because of climate change. Sucking more water out of the rivers for energy production will pit industry versus communities, and threaten the survival of fish such as the Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, bonytail, and razorback sucker, the group said.

“Already, because of fossil fuel development, certain rural areas of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming have worse air quality than Los Angeles,” the report states. “The oil shale debate must, likewise, evaluate the potential impacts on our climate. As explained in this report, oil shale is projected to produce roughly 25 percent to 75 percent more greenhouse gases than comparable quantities of conventional crude oil. Colorado has adopted the vitally important goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Other states are advancing similar goals. Large-scale production of oil shale would likely undermine these important goals.”

The company is one of only three that holds a federal lease to research oil shale energy development on the Western Slope, but officials say they would rather pursue other projects.

“Chevron has notified the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Department of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS) that it intends to divest its oil shale research, development and demonstration lease in the Piceance Basin in Colorado,” the company announced Tuesday. “While our research was productive, this change assures that critical resources — people and capital — will be available to the company for other priorities and projects in North America and around the globe. We will work with the BLM and DRMS to determine the best path forward, timing and other issues.”

Despite nearly 100 years of failed attempts to make oil shale commercially viable, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said the energy source will help fund his $260 billion transit package and U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, is pushing the Pioneers Act, which would revive a 2008 plan put together during the Bush administration to open 2 million acres of public lands in Utah, Wyoming and western Colorado to oil shale drilling. The House passed Lamborn’s bill this month.

The Congressional Budget Office issued a report, however, which projected that Boehner’s bill would, over 10 years, leave the highway trust fund $78 billion in the red, and the Interior Department is looking at slashing the amount of land available for oil shale research to 462,000 acres.

“Chevron’s research hardly got started and they quickly concluded that they were throwing money down a rabbit hole. It’s indicative of the fact that oil and gas companies see much more profitable, and realistic, opportunities elsewhere,” said Colorado energy expert Randy Udall.

Squeezing energy out of oil shale requires immense quantities of water. Industrial-scale oil shale development could require as much as 150 percent of the amount of water the Denver Metro Area consumes annually, according to Bureau of Land Management estimates.

As early as 1921, oil companies have been trying to tap northwest Colorado for oil shale. The expense required to develop the energy source, however, has outweighed potential profits. About a dozen different projects have come and gone during that time — none remembered more than “Black Sunday” when ExxonMobil pulled the plug on a huge oil shale operation in western Colorado in 1982 that left the region in economic shambles.

Chevron and its subsidiaries started amassing acreage in Colorado for oil shale research back in the 1930s.

“Oil companies have been trying to pull the sword from the stone for nearly a century. Oil shale has no King Arthur,” said Matt Garrington of the Checks & Balances Project. “Chevron’s decision to pull out of oil shale is yet another reason why [U.S. Rep. Scott] Tipton [R-Colorado] and Lamborn should quit saying that melting rocks into oil will somehow fund critical repairs to our roads and bridges.”

Royal Dutch Shell and AMSO are the other two companies that hold oil shale leases in Colorado.

The Republican-controlled House approved U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn’s bill to increase oil shale development on public lands in addition to plans to drill onshore in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico waters. But the representatives didn’t stop there. They also voted to try to force the approval of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

The energy package passed 237-197 with 21 Democrats joining the GOP majority and an equal number of Republicans siding with the minority. It will now go to the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Oil shale is a commercially unproven commodity. It requires immense quantities of water and energy to heat the rock. Its ominous history is epitomized by “Black Sunday” when ExxonMobil pulled the plug on a huge oil shale operation in western Colorado in 1982 that left the region in disarray.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, bundled the energy bills into a broader transportation package, most of which still hasn’t made it out of the House. Despite a century of failed efforts to make oil shale profitable, along with a Congressional Budget Office report that projects oil shale leases will total less than $100,000 annually over the next decade, Boehner has said energy drilling will fund his $260 billion transit package. The Congressional Budget Office report, however, projected Boehner’s bill would, over 10 years, leave the highway trust fund $78 billion in the red.

Shell in-situ oil shale research project in Colorado's Rio Blanco County.

Whereas Lamborn’s bill authorizes up to 2 million acres of public land for oil shale exploration in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, the Bureau of Land Management recommends a half million acres be set aside for leasing.

U.S. Reps. Diane DeGette and Jared Polis, D-Colorado, argued against Lamborn’s proposal, saying that Coloradans oppose oil shale leases since they would hurt the state’s agriculture and recreation economy by depleting limited water resources and allowing oil companies to lock away more public land at fire-sale prices. The last time oil shale production went bust in Colorado, $85 million in annual payroll disappeared in Garfield and Mesa counties over two years, DeGette told her colleagues.

“Shell Corporation estimates it could be 2020 before a company could be ready to develop a federal oil shale lease,” DeGette said. “We need real solutions for funding our nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure. Using H.R. 3408 as a funding source for the surface transportation reauthorization is not a good faith effort to create the jobs Americans so desperately need.”

Polis introduced an amendment to strike the oil shale legislation from the highway bill. It failed.

Indeed, it was a good week in Congress for fossil fuels and a bad one for renewable energy.

An extension of the wind production tax credit was initially folded into an earlier version of a plan to extend the nation’s payroll-tax cut and unemployment insurance bill. But when a deal was reached Thursday, the wind production tax credit was left out. All of Colorado’s congressional delegation except Lamborn support the extension of the wind tax credit, which debuted in 1992.

The credit could still be tied to other bills or come as stand-alone legislation. It has lapsed in the past.

“Colorado will suffer tremendous economic dislocation if the wind production tax credit is not renewed on a timely basis this year because our state has become a hub for wind industry manufacturing,” said Craig Cox, executive director of Interwest Energy Alliance. “Colorado is the nation’s eighth-largest generator of wind power and hosts the world’s leading national laboratory in wind and other renewable energy technologies. … If Congress fails to renew the production tax credit on a timely basis, many of Colorado’s 5,000-plus wind industry jobs are at risk, along with tens of thousands of jobs nationally. We have developed a truly American industry in the past five years, with over 60 percent of a typical wind turbine’s components manufactured right here in the United States. Failing to renew the production tax credit puts these jobs, and America’s international competitiveness, at risk.”

Developers can still qualify for the credit if their projects generate electricity by the end of the year. But without federal subsidies in 2013, wind proponents say many projects could be stalled or abandoned.

Rep. Lamborn

A year ago, he voted against an amendment to repeal $53 billion in oil subsidies. A month later, he voted against a motion that would have stopped oil companies from getting any subsidies. Combined, Lamborn and Colorado’s other conservative congressmen voted 18 times to protect tax breaks for oil companies in 2011. Lamborn’s record (pdf) shows that he has not only routinely sided with tax breaks for oil companies, he stiff-arms renewable energy whenever given the chance. Last July, for instance, Lamborn shot down an amendment to increase funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as an amendment to boost funding for the Department of Energy’s solar energy program and he voted in favor of eliminating all funding for energy efficiency and renewables.

The closest support Lamborn has shown for the development of wind energy may be his push to mine rare earth minerals, which generate radioactive waste and are used to manufacture wind turbines.

Lamborn’s spokeswoman did not return a message seeking comment for this story but he previously told the Colorado Independent he supports wind energy as part of an “all-of-the-above energy plan.” The spokeswoman also noted that Lamborn supported H.R. 2173, the Advancing Offshore Wind Production Act, which would slash government red tape for wind developers seeking permits.

The congressman has been a good fossil fuel foot soldier. He is the architect of the Pioneers Act, which would fast-track more oil shale exploration in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The Bureau of Land Management, however, is recommending a much different plan. Whereas Lamborn wants to open up to 2 million acres of public land in the three states for oil shale exploration, the BLM believes a half-million acres would do. Adding to the drama of dueling blueprints for energy exploration is House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who announced he plans to use oil shale revenues to rebuild the nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure. New numbers from the Congressional Budget Office, however, reveal oil shale leases under the Pioneers Act would total less than $100,000 annually over the next decade. Infrastructure improvements are estimated to cost $40 billion.

Rep. Polis

“We’ve heard of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 proposal; oil shale is the 0-0-0 proposal — no energy, no revenue, and no jobs,” Polis said. “It’s worth research, and there are plenty of research leases out there, but it isn’t ready for prime-time. We shouldn’t risk thousands of real Colorado jobs in agriculture or our recreation economy on a giveaway to oil companies. Congress shouldn’t hand two million acres of public lands to oil shale speculators and lock these areas away from Colorado families, ranchers and recreation jobs.”

Industrial scale oil shale development could require as much as 150 percent of the amount of water the Denver Metro Area consumes annually, according to Bureau of Land Management estimates. Republicans, such as U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton of Colorado, recently voted against an amendment to Lamborn’s bill that would have required the U.S. Geological Survey to complete more study of the effects of oil shale exploration on water resources before allowing commercial development.

“Oil shale is technologically unproven for commercial development and its water demands not fully studied,” said Colorado Wildlife Federation Executive Director Suzanne O’Neill. “It is only common sense that we pursue a research-first approach instead of fast-tracking leasing of additional federal public lands for hoped commercial development that could impact further the lands and waters Coloradans use for economically significant hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation.”

Matthew Garrington, co-director of the Checks and Balances Project, released a video this week of what he calls the “oil shale boondoggle” that is the centerpiece of an online ad campaign in the National Journal, Politico, The Hill and the Colorado Springs Gazette:

As Lamborn focuses on oil shale, Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, D-Colorado, are amplifying their calls for Congress to extend the wind payroll tax credit. Bennet filed an amendment to the transportation funding bill today that would extend the wind-production tax credit for one year.

“Extending the wind energy tax credit is a policy move that can give Coloradans and Americans a great return on investment — a stronger economy, more local jobs and more affordable power for our homes,” Udall said in a statement, which noted that Danish energy company Vestas Wind Systems employs over a thousand people in four manufacturing facilities in Colorado. “With employers like Vestas willing to invest in Colorado, Congress needs to act well before the deadline and give these employers certainty to plan ahead — otherwise those jobs will move to other countries. Failing to extend the production tax credit for wind energy will threaten the industry’s growth and Colorado jobs, and I’ll continue to push my colleagues for a better solution where Colorado keeps our jobs.”

Udall and Bennet

Rep. Cory Gardner

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, is the lone holdout in the state’s bipartisan push.

Rep. Lamborn

“My preference is to help industry grow by reducing federal regulations and mandates as opposed to carving out special interests in the tax code,” Lamborn wrote in an email to the Colorado Independent on Tuesday.

Lamborn, who is the chairman of the Natural Resources subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources, recently supported H.R. 2173, the Advancing Offshore Wind Production Act, which would slash government red tape for the wind industry in seeking permits on federal lands. He also recently introduced a plan to open about 2 million acres of public lands in Utah, Wyoming and western Colorado to oil shale drilling, which environmentalists strongly oppose. The U.S. Department of Interior has different ideas and is trying to rein in oil shale leasing in the American West.

Polls show, however, that Colorado residents prefer renewable energy over fossil fuels.

Renewable energy experts say the wind production tax credit is key for Colorado.

“Manufacturing jobs are critical in America’s economic recovery,” Tim Heaton and Lee Boughey, chairs of the Colorado Energy Coalition, said in a joint statment. “The expiration of the Production Tax Credit would have a devastating impact on Colorado, affecting not only jobs and investment at our large wind manufacturers, but the many supply chain manufacturers that serve the wind industry. To provide the certainty that wind-energy companies need to create more jobs and investment in Colorado, the Colorado Energy Coalition endorses a three- to five-year extension of the PTC.”

The legislation, which President George H.W. Bush first signed into law in 1992, gives owners of wind energy farms a 2.2 cents-per-kilowatt credit on their U.S. income taxes annually for the first decade of the wind farm’s existence. It has been extended many times and is set to expire at the end of the year.

Colorado generates the third highest percentage of power from wind of any state in the nation and is home to several major wind energy developers and wind turbine manufacturing facilities.

Estimates show that wind energy employs upwards of 6,000 workers statewide.

The BLM’s proposal is a thorough overhaul of the Bush-era leasing inventory: it slashes shale from 1.9 million acres to 462,000 and sands from 431,000 acres to 91,000.

Oil shale is found in northwestern Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah and it contains an organic precursor to oil called kerogen. Despite decades of attempts, oil shale has never proven commercially viable. Squeezing fuel from the rock requires copious quantities of water and heating the shale underground to something above 700 degrees over a period of several years. Everything that must go into oil shale production is considered far more environmentally harmful than the production of conventional oil.

“While I have long felt there is potential for oil shale development, it is critical that a number of unanswered questions be resolved before commercial-scale leasing takes place,” Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado, said in a prepared statement. “Fully understanding the demands of oil shale development on Colorado’s water and local communities is essential to ensuring responsible development.”

Last year, the BLM announced it would reconsider the Bush-era land leasing plan as part of a settlement of a lawsuit by environmental groups in 2009 that challenged the 2008 action.

“For the sportsmen, farmers, ranchers and communities on the Western Slope that depend on clean air and clean water, making sure development is done right the first time is vital to their way of life,” said Udall, noting that the BLM will be accepting public comment on its plan for the next 90 days.

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, issued a statement reminding residents of “Black Sunday,” May 2, 1982, when Exxon’s massive Colony oil shale project went bust on the state’s Western Slope.

Udall and Bennet

Rep. Lamborn

“Oil shale is one of the most promising new sources of American-made energy and the United States is fortunate to have an abundance of oil shale resources, including in Colorado,” Lamborn said.

Environmentalists and others immediately panned Lamborn’s bill.

“We already face a water shortage in the West that threatens farmers and ranchers,” said Bill Midcap of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. “We simply cannot gamble away our water on oil shale speculation at the risk of losing our farming and ranching economy that we depend upon for our food and fiber. … We should use existing research and development projects to determine how much water will be needed before we consider commercial leasing of oil shale.”

Extracting fuel from oil shale can require anywhere between three and five barrels of water for every barrel of oil — one of the many reasons why it is more costly than producing conventional crude oil. Experts say commercial oil shale production is potentially a decade away, if it ever happens at all. Yet H.R. 3408, the “Pioneers Act,” would revive a 2008 plan by the Bureau of Land Management to open about 2 million acres of public lands in Utah, Wyoming and western Colorado to oil shale drilling.

“We already face a water shortage in the West that threatens farmers and ranchers,” said Bill Midcap of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. “We simply cannot gamble away our water on oil shale speculation at the risk of losing our farming and ranching economy that we depend upon for our food and fiber. A farm economy that is crucial for our State and that is helping our State out of the recession. We should use existing research and development projects to determine how much water will be needed before we consider commercial leasing of oil shale.”

Conservation groups challenged the plan on grounds that the analysis of impacts and the process were flawed and a new proposal re-evaluating the plan is due out soon. Lamborn’s bill (pdf) would mandate commercial leasing on 125,000 acres of public lands by 2016 even though the technology isn’t in place.

“Lamborn’s approach to oil shale is ‘Ready or not here it comes,’ and we are not ready,’’ the National Wildlife Federation’s Kate Zimmerman said. “There are still very important questions to be answered about the impacts of extracting oil shale on Colorado communities, on water quantity and quality and on fish and wildlife. Let’s wait for the results of the existing research into oil shale technology that is already taking place on public lands in Colorado and Utah before we give away more public resources.”

Oil shale was behind the huge western Colorado bust of the 1980s, when Exxon shut down a massive project that threw communities and families into economic and social turmoil. Nonetheless House Speaker John Boehner recently pointed to new oil shale legislation as a way to pay for transportation projects in the next five years — a check that may be hard to cash.

“Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee botched Rep. Lamborn’s oil shale legislation hearing, which showed just how ridiculous the bill is,” said Matt Garrington, co-director of the Checks and Balances Project. “In two hours, the committee majority voted down guaranteeing oil shale technology to be American-made, ensuring that oil shale extraction won’t harm water supplies for municipalities and agriculture, and requiring commercial oil shale to be a proven revenue generator before handing over 2 million acres of public land for speculation. House Republicans did manage to preserve taxpayer handouts for oil companies by giving away oil shale at bargain-basement rates, undermining Speaker Boehner’s goal of raising transportation funds.”

The Lamborn bill would set royalty rates for oil shale starting at 5 percent for five years – compared to about 12.5 percent for extracted offshore oil and gas – and gradually raise the rate over several years. If they were ever paid, Garrington added, the lower royalties would mean less revenue for local governments, which would then shoulder the burden of costs associated with energy development such as new schools, hospitals, emergency services, roads, and other utilities.

The Pioneers Act is one of three bills concerning domestic energy that the committee approved. The GOP also voted to jump start offshore oil production and open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. Republicans plan to attach the bills to a $260 billion transportation package.

“Instead of legislating seriously,” said David Goldston, director of government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, what the Republicans have done is put out “an inventory of all the worst ideas they’ve had for the last two decades.”

Lamborn’s bill still must pass the House and if it does, like the other measures the House Committee on Natural Resources passed Wednesday, it will face opposition in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.