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Show Warner-Hair? negotiating over new oil shale proposal By Helene C. Mongerg Vernal Express Washington Correspondent Washington Chairman John Warner, R-Va., of the Senate Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee and Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., are negotiating on a new proposal to allow the Interior Department to resume its oil shale leasing program. "We hope to have something to take to the Subcommittee and Members of the Senate Energy Committee in a week or two," a Senate staffer on the Committee told this correspondent on March 26. Hart is opposed to the oil shale leasing bill which cleared the Senate Energy Committee last December by near unanimous vote. Warner promised the Colorado Democrat he would try to work out something before the bill goes to the Senate floor to satisfy Hart's objection. Basically, Hart claims he wants oil shale to develop in Colorado at only a measured pace. But how much oil shale development is open to dispute, as he opposes strip-mining of oil shale, and that's the cheapest and most efficient ef-ficient method to mine shale, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of Energy experts, and industry. So Hart has proposed as a compromise com-promise that Interior not lease more than four public tracts in the next 10 years, that not more than one of the Interior-leased tracts be an open-pit operation, and that one be a multi-mineral multi-mineral development. This would open the way for open-pit mining of already leased Colorado Tract A in the Piceance Creek Basin of Western Colorado, but it would foreclose Colorado Tract B in the same area from open-pit mining. Warner has had problems with the Hart proposal, so the is now in the process of trying to refine it to make it acceptable to the Committee and to Hart, who has a "hold" on the oil shale - bill on the Senate floor. Hart has been severely criticized by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, for not being "tough" enough in standing up to industry in-dustry pressure. But Metzenbaum, who is a member of the Senate Energy Committee, was absent during the final mark-up of the bill in December. He was in Ohio getting an honorary degree from a state college. Hart is not a member of the Energy Committee. Retrenchment seems to be the name of the game in the oil shale business these days. Occidental Oil Shale, Inc., this past week announced the closing of its Denver office on March 31, and it said that all of its affairs in the future would be conducted out of its office in Grand Junction. It will be headed by Jack Rigg, who has long been associated with oil shale, and is a native of Grand Junction. Rigg had been in charge of its Denver office. The U.S. Synthetic Fuels Corpl held several meetings here in recent days on . the $1.1 billion loan guarantee that the government has given to Tosco for its share 40 percent of its joint oil shale project in Colorado with Exxon. When Tosco got its loan guarantee last June, its cost of the joint venture was estimated at $3.1 billion. Now it is estimated at $3.7 billion. It is due to get the first increment of money from the federal government on April 1, and the . Syn-Fuels Corporation is looking very hard at the project. The U.S. is likely to delay making the first payment, but Tosco's Washington representative Jack McDonald says he anticipates no major problem, only "a modest delay," he said here on March 26. Still, Tosco is concerned about the U.S. coming thru with its commitment, and Tosco has been calling around town to line up some support to get Uncle Sam moving. Meanwhile, the only new proposals for syn-fuels development being moved by the Corporation are coal and heavy oil projects. |