AAcECeay bill will open far seond leases Representative Gunn McKay (D-Utah) recently introduced the McKay Tar Sands Leasing Bill which will free up leases to develop the valuable fuel resource. "The Department Depart-ment of Interior has a moritorium on the issuance of tar sands leases which is keeping us from going ahead with this development, and from getting synthetic syn-thetic fuels from tar sands in the nation's na-tion's energy pipeline," McKay said. McKay announced that his bill would amend various provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 to begin issuing is-suing single leases covering hydrocarbons hydrocar-bons other than coal and oil shale. "Lands containing known deposits of tar sands would be leased competitively, competitive-ly, thereby preserving and extending the competitive feature of the present law," McKay explained. "My bill also includes a procedure for including tar sands in existing oil and gas leases. Tar sands are reported on every continent con-tinent except Australia and Antarctica and are found in 24 of the 50 states in the United States. The largest resources of this type and those regarded as containing con-taining commercially exploitable quantities quan-tities of oil are found in Utah, over 90 of the total inventoried United States reserves. Utah's deposits of tar sands are primarily grouped within and around the Uintah Basin in northeastern Utah and in sections of central southeastern Utah. At least five of the deposits are classified as "giant" petroleum fields having more than one billion barrels of oil in place. Four other deposits are considered to be "very large" petroleum fields, 500 to 100 million barrels bar-rels of oil in place, and fifteen others rated as "large" fields with between 100 to 10 million barrels of oil reserves. Combined, Utah's deposits of tar sands are conservatively estimated to contain about 25.1 billion barrels of oil, 10.8 billion in the Uintah Basin and 14.3 billion in the central southeast portion of the state. McKay specified tar sands as one of the eligible energy commodities covered by his landmark synthetic fuels bill, signed into law late in 1979. McKay said, "As we intensify our efforts ef-forts to spur the development of sythetic fuels it is clear that the tar sands of Utah could be one of our most valuable energy resources. The granting gran-ting of leases to set this process on track cannot be delayed. I believe it is important that Congress act with dispatch to pass this bill."