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Show J Shale bill makes agenda, 0 sands bill up in air .Clothe Vernal Express) ! uvHeleneC.Monberg ' -hiniton The Senate Energy t eehas put the House-approved ;t'e bill on its agenda for Conxion Con-xion on Sept. 26 at the request of Wendell Ford, D-Ky. Committee directions to its staff, ' ff of the Department of Interior m Howard W. Metzenbaum, D-' D-' workout differences over a tar-bill tar-bill hieh has also the ''I have not paid off yet. Alby ! :'.;0 energy expert on the Met-t'-um'staff, and George Dowd of the F Energy Committee staff, Ki to have a series of proposed 1 Lents ready for the Depart--s consideration by Sept. 19. did not and were vague as to ; j jf they would be able to agree iof amendments. They must do Friday, Sept. 26, or the tar sands - ; likely to be dead for the year, t "sthe last day of Committee mark-' mark-' the year, the staff told the press !rOt. 19- ij Gary Hart, D-Colo., on Sept. 16 ' , to Ford and to Chairman Henry I ackson, D-Wash., of the Senate . Committee requesting that the passed oil shale bill be added to . -niittee agenda on Sept. 17. No ' Hart renewed his request, and added it to the agenda on Sept. 18 , deration on Sept. 26. -Hart version of the oil shale bill is '. the same as the bill which A the House on Sept. 15 on ion of the rules. It applies only to Ca lease tract in Colorado. Rep. f tisK.Udall, D-Ariz., pointed out to House, the Interior Department had flSed a much larger legislative tge to Congress too late for conation con-ation this year. it bill would allow holders of leases itrthe prototype program up to 1985 jjy additional leases on adjoining J io dispose of spent shale and to H plants and other buildings needed jrt a prototype lease tract under diction. It affords about the only ,. rce to start moving in the near re toward to stated goal of Mr. ter to have 400,000 barrels of shale per day in production by 1990. tp Jim Santini, D-Nev., was out of sand not at me Mouse aeDaie, out submitted a statement which ex-Hi ex-Hi why the oil shale bill, which he i'dall are sponsoring in the House e with other members from Utah, wloand Wyoming, is so important il stale development. '' Jltto there are many impediments ! Mopment of oil shale which will 11 pt legislative action, the off-site " provision appears to be the most rr rmently needed change, rsentatives of the Rio Blanco Oil Ko , the leaseholder of the C-a ' ?il tract in the Piceance Basin, i. testified during hearings in the . ale and the House of the loss of oil , wy by various mining and Kssing methods. :" An open pit surface mine operation , Hyieldfive million barrels of shale 'modified in-situ method would , i 2 billion barrels, and an un- found room and pillar operation "! yield 1 billion barrels of shale oil. ( the most efficient type of Uion developed to date an open surface mine is dependent on- an e site for processing plants and W of spent shale. Production by a ."i" Blanco operation could begin in jilrom the open pit method," San- tini's written statement submitted into the Congressional Record said. The first shale oil plant is expected to put out about 50,000 barrels of "oil" a day. Environmental organizations have gotten assurances from Hart and Ford that provisions will be included in the bill if and when it clears the Senate Energy Committee to assure fair market price for the additional land leased to oil shale prototype lessees; that all environmental laws will be observed and an environmental impact statement be written on the planned operation; and that it be closely monitored for environmental impacts. So they are not planning to oppose the bill at mark-up, according to the latest word from several Congressional sources on Sept. 19. The tar sands bill bothers Metzenbaum Met-zenbaum and several other Senators primarily because the House-passed measure provides for conversion of non-producing oil and gas leases into tar sands leases without competitive leasing or, possible, without payment of additional royalties. This lack of competitive leasing also bothers the Interior Department which wants all areas known to contain deposits of tar sand to be leased competitively. Interior has objected to the House-passed bill, which applies almost exclusively to tar sands production in the state of Utah, as follows: "We strongly object to a section of the bill which would grant holders of new combined hydrocarbon leases i.e., both oil and tar sands an exemption from three to five years from payment of royalties on oil produced using enhanced recovery methods of development or surface mining. The use of a royalty exemption to stimulate the production of tar sands resources amounts to a new subsidy program. "We oppose the subsidization of resources thru the royalty mechanism for several reasons. We believe that one centralized authority, the Energy Security Corporation, should provide subsidies for energy projects. Centralization Cen-tralization of authority will promote sound decisions about appropriate subsidy levels for various energy nrnipflc Tlio ITnorrtii Coz-mi-ifi, Cn- poration is the appropriate body to determine, considering existing and feasible technologies, which energy resources are most efficient and most deserving of subsidies," Interior's Under Secretary James A. Joseph wrote to Udall. The House ignored Interior's comments com-ments when it passed the tar sands bill on July 22, but when Ford and Metzenbaum, Met-zenbaum, in particular, raised similar questions at the hearing on the bill on Sept. 4 before Ford's Energy Supply Subcommittee and later at the mark-up on Sept. 17, ihe Senate Energy Committee Com-mittee ordered the disputants to try to work out their differences and come back on Sept. 26. The debate over the tar sands bill became quite sharp on Sept. 17. This correspondent asked why an effort had not been made to work out the problems earlier, as they has surfaced at the Sept. 4 hearing. "We did try." a committee staffer said. "But we weren't able to come to any agreement." So the bill came up for mark-up anyway, because Sen. Frank Church, D-idaho, had insisted that it be on the agenda. |
