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U.S. Congressman Jared Polis. (D—CO)
Congressman seeks to strike mandatory leasing requirements from transportation bill
By Summit Voice
SUMMIT COUNTY — Congressman Jared Polis took a strong stand on oil shale development this week, seeding to strike from a federal highway bill a provision that would require commercial leasing.
In a prepared statement, the Colorado Democrat said that oil shale development won’t produce affordable American energy, won’t create jobs, and won’t provide new revenues.
Coloradans from both parties oppose the leases, fearing impacts to the state’s agriculture and recreation economy by depleting limited water resources and allowing oil companies to lock away more public land at fire sale prices.
“We’ve heard of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 proposal; oil shale is the 0-0-0 proposal — no energy, no revenue, and no jobs,” said Polis. “It’s worth research, and there are plenty of research leases out there, but it isn’t ready for prime-time. We shouldn’t risk thousands of real Colorado jobs in agriculture or our recreation economy on a giveaway to oil companies. Congress shouldn’t hand two million acres of public lands to oil shale speculators and lock these areas away from Colorado families, ranchers and recreation jobs.”
According to the Bureau of Land Management, industrial scale oil shale development could require as much as 150 percent of the amount of water the Denver Metro Area consumes annually. With waters such as the Colorado River already overtaxed, there simply might not be enough water to facilitate oil shale development, and even less water for agriculture and in-stream flows affecting anglers, recreation and the needs of local communities.
The Rocky Mountain Farmer’s Union, representing about 20,000 family farmers and ranchers in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, has expressed strong opposition to oil shale leasing being included in the transportation bill. They sent a letter to several members expressing concern about the underlying provision and a offered a statement of support for the Polis amendment. Sportsman and conservation advocates, like Trout Unlimited have also endorsed the Polis amendment.
Originally included to provide revenues to pay for the highway bill, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office found the provision actually failed to raise any revenue, due to the fact that oil shale is not commercially viable.
Filed under: Colorado, energy, Environment Tagged: | energy, Environment, Jared Polis, oil shale
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It is unfortunate that politicians with little knowledge of oil shale continue to perpetrate numerous myths about oil shale, in an attempt to stop specific legislation potentially affecting oil shale development, including:
1) Oil shale is not commercially viable. Two companies in Utah are proceeding with plans to bring oil shale production on line in 2014 and 2019 respectively. Large capital projects like this take time to complete. One technology, while novel, has undergone testing already, and the other is the product of decades of refinement of existing technology.
2) No jobs. Current oil shale employment (about 300 people in the region) is small but growing.
3) Plenty of research leases out there. There are not plenty of research leases out there, as those leases are to specific companies, and the area offered up for potential leasing in Colorado is in a very limited portion of the basin, much of it already tied down by existing RD&D leases and their lease preference areas.
4) Congress shouldn’t hand two million acres of public lands to oil shale speculators. Opening large areas of land so that industry, rather the government can decide which areas are prospective does not constitute a giveaway. BLM has the right to demand that lease proposals include description of commercial technology (not likely from speculators) and a water use plan (which should also be required for all energy leases on public land), and has the right to select acreage for any specific lease sale. The previous proposal did not mandate leasing of two million acres, but only set the areas that could ultimately be offered for lease over many years.
The current proposed legislation may or may not generate revenue, and oil shale development may or may not succeed over the next decades, but using false arguments to defeat the bill does not serve Colorado’s interests, nor even those of the politicians making these misstatements.
This is a first! I made a comment to this story earlier, even recorded it, yet when I looked back, it had disappeared and was replaced with the one above. Very strange, indeed.
Norman – Please post again. I don’t think they posted my comment in preference to yours. I am guessing there was just a glitch.
Norman, I deleted your comment because you referred to elected officials as terrorists — and that crosses the line. Please rephrase and stick to the issue of oil shale development.
Sorry bob, I guess I was just carried away here, so, it’s O.K., besides, I can’t review what I wrote, as the site says it’s corrupted, not to be trusted, etc. So, I’ll just pass, O.K.? Sorry again, I guess I got carried away, but then, I do suffer from that dreaded “Short Term Memory Loss” that is the bane of growing old.