Lamborn oil shale bill seen by Boehner as possible transportation funding fix

Republican Doug Lamborn’s bill to speed up oil shale production in western Colorado has been packaged with House Speaker John Boehner’s American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act (HR 7) as a means of funding the nation’s crumbling transportation infrastructure. But critics point out commercial oil shale production is potentially decades away and may never come to fruition.

Oil shale opponents’ DC ‘fly-in’ seeks to expose never-ending ‘science project’

Opponents of oil shale development in western Colorado, Wyoming and Utah participated in a “fly-in” to Washington, D.C. this week to push for increased federal oversight of the still-unproven form of energy that would consume huge amounts of water and conventional power.

Gardner digs in with Big Oil

Colorado Fourth-District Republican US Rep Cory Gardner is filling his campaign coffers for 2012 as he did in 2010 by leaning heavily on oil-and-gas industry donors. He raked in $370,000 in the quarter that just ended. That’s the most of any candidate for federal office from Colorado and topped his take in previous quarters by roughly $100,000. One of every ten dollars Gardner brought in last quarter came from oil and gas, and this quarter the percentage is higher, coming in at roughly 12 percent. That notable campaign finance record paired with the high-profile pro-drilling and environmental-regulation-rollback positions he has taken mark out the freshman congressman as an aspiring top-level advocate for oil and gas on the Hill.

Shell’s natural gas play in Colorado raises issues of local versus state input, control

For decades, Royal Dutch Shell – Europe’s largest energy company – has been known in Colorado as the king of oil shale research, spending an estimated $200 million on an experimental and controversial extraction process that has yet to be proven commercially viable. But Shell and its American subsidiaries have increasingly been moving into natural gas drilling in the United States, including a well permit pulled in southern Colorado that has touched off a firestorm of debate over state versus local control of drilling operations and just how much public input should be allowed.

Foes cite oil shale’s environmental uncertainty, while industry laments regulatory waffling

As predicted, testimony at Wednesday’s House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources oil shale field hearing in Grand Junction produced more industry hand wringing over federal regulatory uncertainty and environmental push-back over an unproven energy source.

Debt-ceiling deal blasted as congressional ‘give away to corporate polluters’

The president of the Wilderness Society today skewered the current debt-ceiling compromise and budget-slashing deal worked out in Washington over the weekend, saying its reductions in spending on environmental and conservation policies “threaten to damage our water, our air and our lands beyond repair.”

Mines prof says Obama, Salazar stalling on oil shale the way Bush did on climate change

Dr. Jeremy Boak, a leading expert on oil shale technology at the Colorado School of Mines, says the Obama administration is dragging its feet on oil shale production in the United States much the way the Bush administration stalled on climate change policy. “It’s curious to hear the same sort of arguments being made by this administration that were made by the Bush administration for not doing anything on climate change,” Boak told the Colorado Independent. “We’ve got to have all the answers before we can move.”

Justice Dept. probes ex-Bush Interior Secretary Norton over oil shale leases

Former Colorado attorney general and Bush administration Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton is being investigated by the Justice Department for allegedly brokering a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to provide the oil company with potentially lucrative oil shale leases…

Shell official confirms thirsty nature of oil shale, denies push to ‘corner water market’

A Shell Oil official confirmed Friday that the “in situ” oil shale production the company is researching at its Mahogany facility near Rangely currently consumes about three barrels of water for every barrel of oil produced.

Oil giants have “cornered the market” on Western Slope water rights, study says

Six energy companies with plans for large-scale oil shale development on the Western Slope, led by ExxonMobil and Shell, have “cornered the market” on water in northwestern Colorado.

The study by Boulder-based Western Resource Advocates concludes that the oil shale activity envisioned by energy companies and some state and federal lawmakers would consume as much water as the entire Denver metro area on an annual basis.