Tag: Checks and Balances

The Senate denied a bill on Tuesday that would have authorized up to 2 million acres of public land for oil shale exploration in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming — not to mention open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other protected areas to drilling.

Asked why he was Colorado's lone congressional holdout in calling for the extension of the wind tax credit, U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn answered his "preference is to help industry grow by reducing federal regulations and mandates as opposed to carving out special interests in the tax code.”

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.

While critics on the right have accused the Obama administration of moving too slowly on the still-unproven potential of oil shale on Colorado’s Western Slope, observers on the left say the White House has been pushing too fast on an agenda promoting Wyoming’s Powder River Basin coal and tar sands oil production in Canada.