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Show pjlsfacale, flear seancHs legislation flogged, outlooEx uncertain 1,1 to the Vernal Express) iSrHvHeleneC.Monberg Legislation to allow a fn oil shale prototype lease to ' ' national lands for shale disposal "Tnt construction and to combine nd tar sands into one lease is in the Senate Energy Com- is another meeting of the m scheduled for the week of 29 but many question whether Linittee can get a quorum. It !,tdosoonFYiday, Sept. 26. The ;ill adjourn Oct. 2. i Ltv Assistant Interior Secretary I 'Xfiin was stunned when he was ' Vbv this correspondent on Sept. 26 rifled that a half dozen amend- and that even tho the surface only is leased for the site facilities and waste disposal, the lessee must pay value foregone on the subsurface. This would so slow up work on C-a and could potentially make the cost of the second lease so high that it would be uneconomical to go ahead. Interior sources said it would delay action for at least a year, as a minimum, to allow for the writing of the EIS. Curlin was clearly upset with these amendments when contacted by the press on Sept. 26. He was the Administration witness who testified in favor of the legislation authorizing a second lease for site construction and shale disposal in i were unaer uwLuaotun .u uc !j to the bill by Sen. Gary Hart, D- :"fl,eHart bill authorizes a second I peeping lease," to try to get the ' prototype program moving : "Wehaven't seen them," Curlin ;J when asked about the amend-3 amend-3 rjon Smith, Hart's staffer i r-jig the oil shale legislation, was j the office on Sept. 26. committee backgrounder on the ; "iie bill, supposedly prepared by Senate Supply Subcommittee , by Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., ' C; the Hart bill look like a rip-off. ,j told this correspondent he ed to bring up the Hart bill if the r-jttee has a quorum. But a Ford chimed in to say that when and s Hart bill got to the Senate floor, Dale Bumpers, D-Ark., was likely , ijjch to it an across-the-board -stive leasing bill for oil and gas Bumpers is sponsoring. The oil :iy is totally opposed to it. That the Hart bill. ,s the Subcommittee presen-i presen-i of the Hart bill for committee deration. It states why the Rio a partnership of Gulf Oil and a sants to obtain additional il lands for waste disposal and : facilities in connection with the pent of its Colorado C-a oil I lease. & Blanco wants to strip-mine C-a, :: cannot do so on only 5,120 acres, S at of the lease, if it has to reserve v; tithe leased land for disposal and ' es siting. Interior Department j and the Congressional Office of kvdogy Assessment agree with Rio a In effect, the Hart bill does too providing for a second - keeping" lease. Trt the legislation, backed by the IR1 Nation, is presented in these .51 for committee mark-up "Altho IK lnc. being a partnership of two 4i lies, could obtain an additional '2 sres, it prefers to obtain the use 'f the surface of federal lands. In 3 i 'iv, the lessees could maximize J, fcovery of their resources, leave 3 the possibility of obtaining 'i w development lease while not ' leasing federal minerals, shy avoiding the need to pay fair w "lvalue for them. A change in the P, s required to accomplish these M by this correspondent of .; w and other Congressional staff ls indicated the above ex-,.' ex-,.' is wrong: that Ca, being a . -fthip, is eligible for only one I ditis currently barred by law " Schroeder amendment to the , i "Organic Act from getting another Public land-surface or sur-iK sur-iK ad subsurface for shale disposal M siting. 3 Amendments to the Hart bill ltl came in from the en- 1 rtalistswho are opposed to the j ere are six of them. 1 Provide for multi-mineral Hie development of sodium III nfermixed with oil shale in the eCreek Basin in Northwestern j Halong with oil shale; they T . 7l & a second lease is issued V type oil shale lease holder, he II both leases if he makes a M ,'agnment to another; and it ; ili at 1116 second lease may te i i'!"1!111 connection with federal Plans. No Problem. '! kl the amendments also t l l no additional lease can be anyone who is not now a fflH' ' le5ffh0,der' thereby barring m!u fnany new Prototype l ' 8 fu" environmental im- ' CJS'must be prepared housekeeping" lease; House hearings. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, plans to present amendments to the tar sands bill which would require the payment of a 12.5 percent royalty by a combined hydro-carbon lease of oil-gas and oil shale, according to his energy expert aide Alby Modiano. The tar sands bill which passed the House provided for a waiver of royalty as an incentive to get Utah tar sands into production. None is in production now. With the traditional royalty in effect, as proposed by Metzenbaum, supporters of tar sands development say it would be uneconomic to develop a combined hydrocarbon lease. |
