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Show per ira caraeinitf oil sheole leasing program. proposed ,8llo the Vernal Express BvHeleneC.Monberg rton-The Interior Depart-Snning Depart-Snning to go to a permanent 'Toil shale leasing a couple of fi now, it announced on May it a revolutionary proposal for Apartment which has been Illv hesitant to lease public on an experimental basis, j shale development, change took place, according to Tunder Secretary James A. anrl nther sources, primarily ornational need to wean this -ZL much as possible away from Eastern and other foreign oil and with the blessing to the ': i Colorado and Utah, where the .Redevelopment is expected to f place. MDolicy background paper that made public with its press U dated May 27 on resumption of !t lease program this year, Joseph ;teffas gearing up the Department !0ermanent leasing program two s hence. Assistant Interior i Itary Guy R- Martin has been put Leof a task force to review the reres and problems that must be I to put a permanent oil shale program in place circa 1982. . policy paper, Joseph stated, (the health of a maturing industry j the energy security of the nation, iiale production should continue to andinthe 190's and beyond. As the est and richest portions of the iurce are in federal ownership, reased production beyond 1990 will largely dependent on further sing...under a permanent leasing ijram," he said. , s Development of a new permanent ijram will permit the full scrutiny .i i analysis required for such a jjicant initiative. Preparation of a nnanent leasing program must (in immediately," according to eph. This should include, he said: ) A review of the prototype program, or test leasing, under which four leases of public land were sold in 1974 and under which four more leases will be sold this year, in Colorado and Utah. 2) An extensive program of consultation con-sultation with the affected states and local governments, industry, the environmental en-vironmental community, and other interested members of the public. 3) Consideration of a full range of leasing alternatives, including the alternatives of no further leasing and no near-term leasing. 4) Full compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, including preparation of a programmatic environmental en-vironmental impact statement, which it will take from 18-24 months to do. Joesph said, "The constantly changing national and international , outlook for liquid hydrocarbons requires that a permanent leasing program be developed and put in place within the next two years. Failure immediately to initiate development of a permanent program poses the distinct risk that an emergency situation in the future would require the quick development and implementation im-plementation of a poorly designed, crash leasing . program, without adequate safeguards," Joseph stated. He said he had put Martin, who has public lands under his jurisdiction, in charge of a review of the issues involved in-volved in permanent leasing, after checking out the test program. Martin is to report the results of his review, via a task force, in four months' time. Other background papers indicated that both the state of Colorado and the state of Utah were supportive of permanent per-manent leasing, while environmental groups opposed resumption of leasing either under the test least program or for the long haul. The Utah correspondence on this point was not included in a press packet given to this correspondent last week, but the Colorado correspondent was. D. Monte Pascoe, executive director of the Department of Natural Resources jn Colorado, wrote to the Department on May 6 that Colorado favored permanent per-manent leasing and that it favored gearing up for such leasing. "Interior should prepare for the future by designing a permanent oil, shale leasing program," Pascoe stated. 'This would not commit the Department Depart-ment to implementing the program (at this time), but it would enable the Department to act more quickly if it were decided. ..that (permanent) leasing were appropriate." Among the matters that must be considered would be the fashion in which the executive order barring leasing on oil shale lands, issued by President Hoover in 1931, should be lifted. Other examples of matters which should be considered in relation to a permanent test lease program are number and location of leases, criteria for tract selection, tract size, number of tracts available to one company, whether lessees should be directed to use a particular technology, among others, Pascoe said. And he underscored that "state and local governments should have a major role in a permanent leasing program. The federal coal management program sets a precedent for active state par- . ticipation in federal leasing decisions. We would welcome an opportunity to discuss the experience with the coal program and work with the Department Depart-ment to design ways for even more effective state and local participation in an oil shape leasing program," Pascoe stated. |