• Background Information
• Recent Updates
• Other Resources

[Thanks to Western Resource Advocates for the following excerpts of the lawsuit summaries.]

On February 15, 2011, US Department of the Interior (DOI), WCC and 12 other conservation groups settled two pending lawsuits that will suspend litigation so DOI can review oil shale policies adopted by the previous administration. 

The suits contest regulations for proposed commercial leasing, and the decision to open to application for commercial leasing 2 million acres of federal lands in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.  The ongoing federal research and development leasing program was not part of either suit.  Settlement does not affect the more than 200,000 acres of privately-held oil shale lands or the extensive state oil shale lands in Utah.

Lawsuit #1: 2008 BLM Land Use Plan Amendments

This lawsuit challenges the decision to open 2 million acres of public lands.  The plaintiffs charged that the Bush Administration Interior Department violated the law by, among other things:

• failing to evaluate an alternative that protected public lands, including wilderness-quality lands, and habitat important for the survival of the sage grouse
• failing to adequately analyze the impacts of oil shale on air quality and climate change.

The settlement proposes:

By June 15, 2011, BLM will begin a public process to consider changing the 12 affected BLM land use plans.  This review does not commit BLM to changing the plans, but provides an opportunity for the agency, with input from the public, oil shale companies, local communities, and others, to review current policies. 

The agreement provides that BLM will issue a final decision on the land use plans by January 15, 2013.

Lawsuit #2: 2008 Oil Shale Commercial Leasing Regs

This lawsuit challenges the commercial leasing regulations.  The plaintiffs charged that the Bush Administration Interior Department violated the law by, among other things:

• failing to ensure the United States receives a “fair return” on or “fair market value” for production on federal oil shale leases
• failing to analyze the environmental consequences of such a low rate, which would encourage development of marginal oil shale lease.

This settlement proposes:

By May 15, 2012, BLM will begin a process to consider amending the oil shale leasing regulations.  Re-opening the regulations does not commit DOI to changing them.

BLM will consider:

1. Removing the current royalty rate, but not replacing it with a new rate.  (As DOI has acknowledged, because technologies are in their infancy, the agency does not have a good basis for setting oil shale royalty rates.)
2. Acknowledging BLM’s authority to deny a commercial lease if the environmental risks of approving the lease are too great.
3. Providing that development plans for oil shale include plans to protect environmental resources such as watersheds, groundwater, and air quality. These types of plans are routinely required for other types of mining operations.

The BLM will publish a final decision by November 18, 2012. 

Background Information

When oil shale is mentioned on the Western Slope of Colorado, it is discussed as a boondoggle that brought our economy to its knees. The day that Exxon closed down its oil shale operations and sent home over 2,000 workers -- May 2, 1982 -- is still referred to as Black Sunday. Extracting oil out of rock proved to be too technologically challenging and too expensive to pursue.

Now, over 20 years later, Congress tells us that everything has changed. With surging oil prices, suddenly oil shale is being touted as a way for the U.S. to achieve energy independence. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 put the Bureau of Land management (BLM) on a path to commercially lease oil shale reserves as early as 2008 -- despite the fact that no economically viable technology to extract these resources has yet been proven. Concerns are many-fold:

• Oil shale development is a water buffalo. Mining and retorting oil shale takes two to three barrels of water to produce just one barrel of oil in this, one of the West's driest areas. 
• With new industry comes significant numbers of people and increased demands on our government, our roads, our schools, and our hospitals.
• The mining and processing of shale itself produces numerous toxic pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, and particulates. The power plants required for in-situ development alone would release ten million tons of greenhouse gases.
• Turning rocks to oil also requires massive amounts of energy. Even just a 100,000 barrel-per-day oil shale operation would require 1,200 megawatts of electricity -- requiring a new power plant as large as any currently operating in Colorado.

Western Colorado Congress believes that proposed commercial leasing regulations should:

• Adopt a staged approach, whereby commercial leasing will not take place until after successful technologies have been shown either on federal Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D) leases or on private land.
• Adopt a schedule and scale that meets with the approval of local communities.
• Include measures to discourage speculative leasing, such as establishing minimum production levels.
• Establish the size of the leases in a commercial leasing program based on the carrying capacity of the land, as set out in applicable Management Plans.
• Require extensive baseline monitoring as well as mine or in-situ construction, operational, and post-operational monitoring to provide accurate information about the effects commercial shale development operations are having on the environment and local communities.
• Where federal shale resources underlie land managed by another agency, require consultation and written consent to leasing from the surface-managing agency before federal oil shale may be leased.
• Contain reclamation standards and ensure that companies post adequate bonds for long-term protection of resources.

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Recent Updates

You can read and download some of the following items as Adobe Acrobat PDF files (If you don't have it already, click here to download Adobe Acrobat Reader).

• Oil Shale: Unlocking the Rock (Audubon Society video)
• "What's the rush on oil shale?" (5/17/07, Denver Post editorial)
• Shell Oil has accepted leases on three oil shale research and development plots in northwest Colorado. (11/16/06 Grand Junction Daily Sentinel and the BLM's press release)
• "The Illusive Bonanza: Oil Shale in Colorado" by Randy Udall, Community Office for Resource Efficiency.
• "The second coming: Oil shale" (Nov/Dec 2005 WCC Clarion) Oil shale reserves are being touted as solution to US energy independence.
• WCC's position paper on oil shale.

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Other Resources

• Read the comments submitted by WCC, et al, on oil shale's Programmatic EIS.
• Check out the official website for the Oil Shale and Tar Sands Programmatic EIS...
• ...and the Western Resource Advocates official comments on the Programmatic EIS.
• Purchase the RAND Corporation paperback book, "Oil Shale Development in the United States: Prospects and Policy Issues", (2005) for $18.
• The BLM White River Resource Area's planning website with links to Environmental Assessments on oil shale Research, Development & Demonstration activities.
• Download a 79 page Princeton report, An Assessment of Oil Shale Technologies, Volume II: A History and Analysis of the Federal Prototype Leasing Program.

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Contact WCC organizer Frank Smith for more information on "going slow" on oil shale.