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Show ;.fflfe oSF 51 shale ofttorcacfl' Isposcal bill up to Mart ,8ltothe Vernal Express) ' eleneC.Monberg W The fate of the oil shale '"S off-site disposal of ;S3 plant siting on public f ' than oil shale lease lands is JS Hart, D-Colo., it ap-f ap-f at the end of the week. ' F'.jf of the Senate Energy Supply ' - 'm told this correspondent ' ' , , it had been given no '' t o what to do with the bill, r parings on the legislat ion on '' ; ' 'delegation would like to tie de bill to a tar sands bill which ' i (or the leasing of tar sands, ' in Utah, by converting " 'iiand gas leases in the state to " 'I'bon or multi-mineral, leases. ,wld ' gi both pieces of ' ;.;wmore clout. r ',er Sen. Dale Bumpers, D-s D-s threatened to add a bill V . l0iely for competitive leasing " civ held minerals, notably oil as an amendment to one or . The bill would be more in-. in-. v .-o such an amendment if it were " '-iied oil shale-tar sands bill, and 'giving the Coloradans pause. i Hart has taken no position on how jle the oil shale bill yet, Don ias the Hart staff said here on U Hart is in the state cam- -j for re-election. , William L. Armstrong, R-Colo., ; 1 -onsor of the bill also, but he has r;fy low-key about it. Neither bill , r was at the hearings on the oil . : or. Sept. 9. V Mouse Interior Committee i tdout a similar bill under sponsorship by Chairman Morris K. Udall, D-Ariz., of the House Interior Committee and most of the area Congressmen last month. Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., and Rep. Timothy E. Wirth, D-Colo., objected to the bill being taken up on suspension of the House rules before environmentalists had an opportunity to testify on it in the Senate Subcommittee on Sept. 9. So the bill was taken off the House suspension calendar. Plans were made to have it put back on the suspension calendar on Sept. 15, but Chairman Jim Santini, D-Nev., of the House Mining Subcommittee will not be in town on that day. So now it is expected to come up on suspension of the rules on Sept. 22. Neither Mrs. Schroder nor Wirth will object to the bill's being taken up on suspension at that time, their offices told this correspondent on Sept. 12. But it will be Hart's decision on attempting at-tempting to move the bill in the Senate that will be crucial because he is a member of the majority party and principal sponsor of the Senate bill. The Senate Subcommittee headed by Sen. Wendell Ford, K-Ky., went out of its way to give the environmentalists a hearing on the off-site disposal bill, unlike the Santini Subcommittee, which did not invite them to testify at a shirt-tailed shirt-tailed hearing on the House companion measure on July 31. Ford comes from a coal state, and there's no percentage for him to move on the oil shale bill unless he is given solid reasons to do so by Hart, a fellow Democrat up for re-election. Hart has not done so to date, according ac-cording to Committee sources and the Hart office. The Hart-Armstrong bill would give the Interior department the authority to lease up to 6400 acres of additional lands for spent shale disposal or plant siting in addition to the 5,120 acres of land already held by the holders of the four oil shale lease tracts for oil shale development. Interior Department witnesses claimed that the bill was not broad enough. Environmental groups argued that the legislation was premature and not needed at this time. But Blaine Miller, president of the Rio Blanco Oil Shale Co., which holds Colorado prototype lease C-A, testified it would be necessary to lease additional ad-ditional public lands to make development of C-a feasible. In order not to hold up the tract development, Miller strongly urged the Ford Subcommittee Sub-committee and the Senate Energy Committee to report the Hart-Armstrong Hart-Armstrong bill at once. It is understood that Hart will try to work out some accommodation with the environmental groups Friends of the Earth, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Sierra Club who are cool to the off-site disposal bill. These are likely to include careful monitoring of the tracts used for plant siting and oil shale disposal; a better definition of fair market value; to require the holders of the prototype leases to prove that such leases are necessary and get prior Secretarial approval for off-site plant siting and disposal; to secure state approval for such use of public lands; to require a lessee to demonstrate demon-strate that he can conduct operations in an "environmentally proper manner and that he can pay fair market value for the additonal lease. |