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Show Oil shale bill fails to pass (Special to the Vernal Express) By Helene C. Monberg Washington The Senate Energy Committee plans to try for a mark-up of a new oil shale bill, having failed to get an agreement on a new bill for the past month. The committee is up against differences dif-ferences between its majority and minority staffs, between Colorado and Utah, between the Department of Interior In-terior and members of the committee. In this legislation, as in much other similar legislation, the Department has definite views, but it does not want to get President Reagan committed to proposals that may backfire. So it is trying to work behind the scenes to get a bill that is satisfactory to it without endorsing anything. This doesn't go over very well with Members of the Committee, and they have made it known that the bill which comes out will be their bill. On a more personal level, there is some resentment by both the members of the Committee and their staffs that the Colorado and Utah Senators want the bill crafted as they want it, but not one of these four Senators now sits on the Senator Energy Committee. In the past at least one Senator from each state sat on the old Senate Interior Committee, its predecessor. Sen. William L. Armstrong, R-Colo., has met with Interior Secretary James G. Watt and with Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., whose energy subcommittee " held hearings on the oil shale bill. Armstrong came out with a new bill on Nov. 2 which moves him away from his position of favoring only off-site leasing for current holders of oil shale leases. Armstrong has also bowed to the Utah Congressional delegation, which has insisted that new federal oil shale " leases have larger tract size, while he has insisted on limiting Colorado federal leases to the current size, 5,120 acres. The Utahns want the lease size in Utah and Wyoming oil shale lands 15,300 acres, and Armstrong's bill goes along with that except for Colorado. The House-passed bill provided for leases up to 15,360 acres in any state. The four -man Utah delegation wants a minimum holding of one lease per state with the potential for an additional ad-ditional lease in each state. Armstrong believes that "we ought to limit each company to one lease for the time being, but a company should be able to replace that lease with another when the first is within 15 years of exhaustion." The House-passed bill already contains this language. The Utah delegation wants offsite leasing authority for lease holders without a time limitation on the off-site leases, which are to be used for the construction of retorting facilities and for waste disposal only. Armstrong wants to limit off-site leases to those who hold federal leases prior to 1985. He would, however, allow for very small surface acreages of federal lands to be leased up to 320 acres to non-federal oil shale developers prior to 1985 so that they can consolidate their private holdings for better management. The House-passed bill has no limit on off-site off-site leases by acreage or time. The Utah delegation insisted on "sound state consultation provisions." Armstrong has put into his new bill a long recitation of consulting features , which he claims Watt and Govs. Scott Matheson, D-Utah, and Richard Lamm, D-Colo. have agreed to. Basically, it is the same as the House language, insofar in-sofar as result is concerned. Armstrong has added an oil shale advisory board and a water rights provision designed further to protect state and local interests in-terests and state water rights. No such provisions are in the House-passed bill. The House-passed bill contains no judicial review. Armstrongs' bill allows for 90 days to bring suit following the leasing decisions of the Secretary of Interior and it gives exclusive jurisdiction to local federal district courts. The Warner bill, which will be used as the mark-up vehicle in the Senate committee, requires a suit to be brought in 60 days and does not allow for a temporary restraining order to be issued. Both the House-passed bill and the Armstrong bill allow leases to opt to make advance rental payments to the ' state, which the governor must distribute only to counties and communities com-munities impacted by oil shale development. The Armstrong bill claims to delete language in the House bill allowing for delayed payments, but such language is in the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act. ' Such language is confusing and in some insistence is actually contrary to state law, according to Armstrong. Language providing for prepayments of rentals and royalties was first included in-cluded in a comprehensive oil shnlc leasing bill by Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and was later inserted into the House-i House-i passed bill. Armstrong favors prepayments pre-payments and believes such a provision should be included in any new oil shale leasing bill to "encourage pre-puyment or rental fere in order to deal with the considerable front-end social and economic impacts" of oil shale development in oil-shale country. |
