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Show Western Resources Oil shale and tar sands RvHeleneCMonberg , hinrfon-Seven years after the !foil embargo of heavily importing ") States both the Administration ingress are now moving on : and legislation to make ' Z 1 land available for oil shale and ds development, primarily in ; and Utah. '. l taltet date of Aug. 16, 1983, has ' set tentatively by the Interior jrtment to lease four more oil shale ;' (racts in Colorado, Utah and 5 Sibiy Wyoming to supplement the ' Prototype leasing program under vhlour tracts were leased, two in ' do and two in Utah. .'task force headed by Assistant , norSecretary Guy R.Martin made ' .recommendation on Sept. 10 to " ,:rior under Secretary James A. , "h, along with a precise schedule f. i be leasing. Joseph has not yet : .fflVed it, but he is expected to, In- - ct ic Tl, - tg sources sam xv i. .jfte Department's initial decision y lease up to four more oil shale tracts i ! is the prototype program on May I (ait the same time Interior decided " q ahead on tar sands development, (Deputy Under Secretary on In-, In-, ' steven P. Quarles told a Senate irgy Subcommittee on Sept. 4 he , :dpated such a leasing program 1 3d be in place in about two years. , trf the time will be taken up by the '. ration of the environmental 'j. (t statement (EIS), Quarles is: A t this country 90 percent of the tar dsisin Utah, and a majority of the i( i resource is on federal land, ac-t ac-t -jig to witnesses at the Sept. 4 i cterior's intense interest in oil shale e tar sands development this year sbeen variously interpreted. "Mere Krics!" an energy expert on the staff itepublican Senator fumed on Sept. Interior's "actions confirm renewed aest on the part of the present nislration in the development of hale resources," the Office of ttology Assessment (OTA) con-ced con-ced in an assessment of oil shale tbiologies and ' of the federal Mjpe oil shale leasing program ad earlier this year. Ii felt that we have to be a step 0I d ot,-ithese i,new'j agencies" , i siished by Congress to push along a , , :;etic fuels industry, Craig P. Hall Bureau of Land Managment said tie time Interior's oil shale an-f' an-f' aement was made in late Mav. p: Hie White House has also given the j0, fitment a nudge or so in this B N. And it has just announced the j tint's nominations for the Board tf. fetors of the U.S. Synthetic Fuels 'poration. They are Deputy Ik : John C. Sawhill . of the Ptment of Energy, chairman, and jj ! following members: Lane 'H president of the AFL-CIO; Secretary Cecil D. Andrus; n Savage, vice president and 'r of Equitable Life Insurance's 1 ent Management Department' !l Cary, chairman of IBM; 1 WneCleary, former chairman of ; first Wisconsin Trust Co., of lff. ee; and John DeButts, retired jp '"an of AT&T. j Senate Energy Committee will r- 11 a hearing on the Sawhill fwtiononSept. 18 and on the other ;tions on Sept. 24. Action on the Ijif prions is questionable, however, r the Nov. 4 election. J?NGRESSIONAL ACTION K " Administration has sought new lef' ,!J ion in both tar sands and oil 4 ,! 'o speed development on public If bi Il!USehas aPPrved of most of fl ' " Administration wanted in ill f'"a tar sands bill (HR 7242) on "! i ii!1 in aPPrving a portion of Adm'nistration wanted in p BilPPed-down oil shale bill ilf "D on Sept. 15. SJ- u If ?nds bil1 in effect provides '. i ,rblned hydrocarbon lease, a 1 J"1 both oil and gas and u- C'n minate the need for the , fj. "fPartaent to distinguish " deposits and tar sands ! ; Pnor to leasing. J. gas 'eases and tar sands cvv :N ,lssued separately under the ir; jSln8 Act of 1920 as ,v titfc,' ause of the lack of a k between the two types Sjronsoil and ar sands- i'SuunwiUing"-t0 issue r: N s: ases the report on HR 7242 tol?" Unoffeial moratorium ?tkQ tar sands leasing on the 'iisyeaitom.1965 untU the spring ,e ''ft as carefully worked U K K 7 teh House delegation, !ay' D-Uta"' and SCS fUtah. was co-(it''0-Ari thairman Morris K, itte the House Interior VXDN!n by airman Jim 'Sniith'' l the House Minin8 4 L:Nto"fiar 11 was specifically .f (" ductinn ;ltate and encourage" .':C oilfromtar sands- ( ne Secretary of Interior to . f convert an oil and gas lease into a tar sands lease "upon proper application"; to extend a tar sands lease for five years; to increase the acreage for competitive tar sands leases from 640 to 5,120 acres. It also authorizes the Secretary of Interior to waive, suspend or reduce a royalty to achieve tar sands production; exempts the production of tar sands from the windfall profits tax; and authroizes a study of royalty payments to determine if they are an . impediment to tar sands development. Altho the bill was put on the agenda of the Senate Energy Committee by Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, for early action, the bill got into a buzz-saw at the Sept. 4 hearing of the Senate Energy Supply Subcommittee chaired by Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., because of its extremely pro-development thrust. Ford, Sens, Howard M. Metzenbaum, D-Ohio, and Malcolm Wallop, R-Wyo., Questioned McKav sharnlv ah it a number of provisions of the bill, including in-cluding the automatic conversion of oil and gas leases to tar sands leases, the waiver of royalty payments, and lack of a diligence requirement. . ' McKay testified industry also has some reservations about the bill on grounds that it "could be used by the Department to force competitive oil and gas bidding on lands in proximity to tar sands areas or delay granting of such leases until a lengthy study has been completed to identify areas containing tar sands." While McKay denied this poses a problem, and both Interior and the state of Utah already have the mechanism in place to move ahead on tar sands leasing, several companies, notably Chevron, are concerned that the bill might become a wedge to do away with non-competitive oil and gas leases on federal lands. The bill came under heavy fire from Metzenbaum when it came up for consideration in the Senate Energy Committee on Sept. 17. On the suggestion of Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., the Committee staff is directed to work out language agreeable to all parties prior to consideration of the bill by the Committee again next week at its last mark-up this year. OIL SHALE CONGRESSIONAL ACTION The pil shale, bijl's passage, in the ' House was1 held up by Reps. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., and Timothy E. . Wirth, C-Colo., until the en- vironmentalists who wanted to testify on the measure had "their day in court" an opportunity to testify at the Ford Subcommittee hearing on a similar bill (S 2858) on Sept. 9. They did not have an opportunity to testify at the Ford Subcommittee hearing on a similar bill (S 2858) on Sept. 9. They did not have an opportunity to testify at the hearing of the Santini Subcommittee on July 31 and the House bill was reported out of the Subcommittee the same day. The bill itself is minor legislation, but it will have an immediate impace on oil shale development, so, again, Udall and Santini joined Congressmen from the states concerned, McKay and Marriott of Utah, Ray Kogovsek, D-Colo., D-Colo., and Richard B. Cheney, R-Wyo., as the bill sponsors. The bill amends the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act to authorize the Secretary of Interior to lease to the holder of an oil shale lease issued prior to 1985 under the prorotype lease program additional lands outside of his existing oil shale lease "for the disposal of waste, construction con-struction of plants, facilities or for any other purpose necessary for the production of shale oil, other than the mining of oil shale itself," Udall told the House on Sept. 15. "If the existing oil shale leases are used for these purposes, it would in many cases significantly reduce the amount of oil that could be produces from any given tract of land," Udall stated. Specifically affected is lease C-a in the Piceance Creek Basin of Colorado, where the holder of the lease wants to use the open-pit method in mining oil shale because the recovery is so much higher by the use of that method than alternative methods, according to the testimony. The OTA assessment came to the same conclusion. con-clusion. Environmentalists are willing to allow such leasing with environmental safeguards, tho they are cool to open-pit open-pit mining generally, they told the Ford Subcommittee. The bill's major deficiency is that it does not repeal a provision in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 which specifically prohibits such use of public land outside of the four leased tracts. There is conflicting opinion as to whether this is necessary. The House-passed House-passed bill is not on the Committee agenda at this pojotuJLSen ary i Hart, D-Colo., is still trying to get the Senate Energy Committee to consider it at its final meeting. |