BLM director Bob Abbey today announced the federal agency has reviewed nominations for three potential lease-holders — ExxonMobil and Natural Soda in Colorado and AuraSource in Utah – and will now forward them on to state regulatory agencies for the next phase of consideration.

“The potential for oil shale development in Colorado, and the economic opportunity that it represents, is huge,” Ritter said in a release. “But the prospect of commercial-scale activities raises significant questions about how oil shale can be successfully integrated into our state’s economy and how we can protect the state’s environment, water, wildlife and communities.”

Exxon ramped up for a major oil shale development boom on Colorado’s Western Slope in the late 1970s and early 80s but ultimately pulled out, leaving towns like Battlement Mesa and Parachute overnight ghost towns.

After six R&D leases were issued in 2007 under the Bush administration, U.S. Secretary of the Interior and former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar in 2009 questioned the Bush-era leasing program and set significant limitations on the size and length of the next round of R&D leases.

Critics say the process is far too unproven, requiring enormous amounts of coal-generated electricity and water – and that it would devastate the fragile landscapes of the West.

“People have been trying to figure out how to suck the hydrocarbons out of these rocks for over a century,” former oil shale worker Craig Thompson said in a release. Thompson is now a professor of engineering at Western Wyoming Community College and on the board of the National Wildlife Federation.

“No one has found an economic solution. When Exxon pulled the plug on their $5 billion gamble and laid off 2,200 workers, the West learned a bitter lesson. The last thing we need is another pipe dream and another economic ‘bust.’”

An Exxon spokesman did not immediately return a call requesting comment.

According to the Associated Press, the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union placed ads in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Pueblo Chieftain, the Alamosa Valley Courier, the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and the Casper Star-Tribune over the weekend.

Salazar earlier this month announced a second round of much smaller research leases being offered on public lands in the Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, also calling for greater accountability on progress in extracting oil trapped in shale formations and an investigation of BLM rule making under the Bush administration.

Industry officials were quick to condemn the Obama administration policies on oil shale at the time, and National Oil Shale Association Executive Director Glenn Vawter told the AP over the weekend that “semi-commercial projects” are needed to fully explore all the questions still surrounding the unproven oil-shale production technology.

The agriculture industry and conservationists point out there simply is not enough water in the arid West to support full-scale, commercial oil shale production in the region.

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