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Show Oil shale bill to come up in House after recess Special to the Vernal Express By Helene C. Monberg Washington The House Interior Committee, which cleared a new omnibus om-nibus oil shale bill on July 22, is now in the process of preparing the report so that the bill can be brought up after the August recess on the House Floor. "I don't think we can bring it up before the recess because of the House schedule," Chairman Jim Santini, D-Nev., of the House Mining Subcommittee Subcom-mittee said. But a staff aide indicated this might happen tho it would be a long shot. "We don't want to give advance ad-vance notice not much anyway," he confided. The bill cleared the House Committee with but one dissent, by Rep. Bruce F. Vento, D-Minn., who expressed concern all of the oil shale lands would be hogged hogg-ed by a few oil shale companies. It also cleared the Committee with the addition addi-tion of five amendments by Rep. Ray Kogovsek, D-Colo., and one by Rep. John F. Seiberling, D-Ohio. Seiberling also withdrew an amendment. The Kogovsek amendments essentially essen-tially were those which the states of Colorado and Utah agreed they wanted in the bill, altho they did not provide for concurrence of these states' governors when the Secretary of Interior offers new oil shale leases. Both governors had sought to have concurrence written into the bill. Basically, the bill allows for those holding leases of oil shale tracts at the present time to acquire additional acreage solely for the purpose of disposing of spent shale and for the construction con-struction of plants and facilities on the additional leased land. The Seiberling amendment which was adopted by voice vote, allowed only present lessess to hold such ancillary leases by limiting the off site leases to lessess which held oil shale leased tracts as of Jan. 1, 1981. It also authorized such ancillary tracts to be leased solely to oil shale lessees of federal lands. The bill had originally allowed such ancillary leases to be issued also to holders of oil shale leases on private and state lands as well as federal lands. The bill increases the number of federal leases that one entity can hold to two leases per state and four nationwide. nation-wide. A federal-tract lessee can acquire an additional lease in either Colorado or Utah after that company has achieved production from both of its existing leases and it is within 15 years of exhausting ex-hausting the recoverable reserves on . one of its existing leases. Kogovsek sponsored the amendment which increased the period to 15 years from 10 years, as the bill originally provided. pro-vided. It was adopted by voice vote. Kogovsek claimed this would give a lessee with a going operation more time to plan for its continued development. The bill continues to allow leases of 5120 acres, but a Kogovsek amendment increased the lease up to 15,460 acres where the Secretary determined the larger acreage was needed to support , an economically viable, commercial shale operation. The limitation was put on the amount that the Secretary could authorize in a lease tract to answer the criticism voiced voic-ed by Vento that the final total acreage should be determined by Congress, not by the Secretary. Vento indicated concern that Interior Secretary James G. Watt might provide pro-vide for unusually large oil shale lease tracts. The Kogovsek amendment was approved by voice vote. "The intent of this amendment is to disperse oil shale development throughout the area", he said. The bill provides for specific authority authori-ty for the Secretary of Interior to issue multi mineral leases. Thus the Secretary of Interior can allow saline minerals such as dawsonite, nahcolite and halite to be leased along with oil shale in the Piceance Creek Basin in Colorado. These sodium minerals are intermingled with oil shale in the Basin. A Kogovsek amendment to the bill on this provision tightened up the language somewhat, stating multi mineral leases could occur only under such "terms, conditions and restric- . tions as may be imposed by the Secretary" of Interior. It was approved by voice vote. The bill also provided for leasing additional federal acreage in small tracts to avoid bypass of small acreages that could not otherwise be economically mined. The fourth and fifth Kogovsek amendments were new language in the bill. The fourth authorizes the Secretary to lease additional oil shale lands only after consultation with the governors of Utah and Colorado, but he might go ahead with leasing tracts which they don't want leased if he regards it to be in the national interest and he details his reasons for doing so the governors, prior to issuing the leases. This Kogovsek amendment was adopted by voice vote after very little discussion. The fifth Kogovsek amendment allows an oil shale company on its op- tion to prepay rents and royalties prior to the year they are assessed, and it directs the governor to distribute such payments "only to those counties, municipalities or jurisdictions impacted im-pacted by oil shale development andor where the lease is sited." This restriction restric-tion was written into the amendment because the states have not been . automatically passing rents and royalties from federal mineral lands to the counties or origin. The money is to alleviate local impacts from oil -shale development. |
