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Show Colorado Sen. Hart opposes oil shale off-site leasing bill By Helene C. Monberg Washington--Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., told the Senate on June 16 he is totally opposed to passage of legislation allowing for off site leasing by holders of oil shale leases without any safeguards. In effect, he is positioning himself to oppose the Administration support for such legislation by Sen. William L. Armstrong, R-Colo., and Rep. Dan Marriott, R-Utah. The Administration thru Interior Under Secretary Donald P. Hodel dated May 22 notified Senate Energy Committee Chairman James A. McClure, R-Idaho, it wants the Armstrong-Mariott off site leasing bills passed "as expediously as possible. Either of these bills would be acceptable accep-table to the Administration," the letter stated. And that's the only oil shale legislation it wants passed at this time, the Hodel letter to McClure stated. Both the Armstrong and Marriott bills authorize a second lease to oil shale lessees to provide space for facilities to process oil from shale and to deposit waste from the lease tract being be-ing mined. Hart indicated his opposition was mainly to open pit mining, altho he couldn't pass up the opportunity to oppose op-pose the Administration and the area Republicans' approach to oil shale development, aides told this correspondent. correspon-dent. Hart introduced his own comprehensive com-prehensive oil shale bill in the Senate on June 16. Hart said he opposed provisions in the Armstrong-Marriott bills which would permit those holding future oil shale leases to get off site leasing privileges. He noted similar legislation had passed the House last year and had cleared the Senate Energy Committee, but had not become law. "I continue to oppose such legislation," he told the Senate, on the grounds that "it would be a grave mistake to extend off tract authority to future leases." The Rio Blanco Company, holder of the Colorado lease tract C-a, wants the off tract leasing authority to increase the recovery of oil from its current lease. The company could get about 1.5 billion barrels of shale oil without additional addi-tional land from their current lease only, on-ly, but it could get 5 billion barrels with the off site leasing. That should not be allowed without the Department of Interior In-terior figuring the increased increment of output into future leases, Hart said. "Even more importantly, the availability of off tract land for spent shale disposal and surface retorting greatly increases the relative economic attractiveness of open pit mining. Open pit mining has some advantages ad-vantages over other processes, including in-cluding a greater rate of resource recovery and lower levels of some pollutants. However, each oil shale open pit mine would be larger than any strip mine in our history. It is appropriate to allow the testing of open pit mining, but we should not expose northwestern Colorado Col-orado to several huge strip mines which could result from (the enactment of) an unlimited off tract bill," Hart told the Senate. Nevertheless, hearings on several oil shale bills are tentatively scheduled in a Senate Energy Subcommittee panel before the end of this month. |
