By Britt Weygandt, The Western Business Rounctable

The Western Business Roundtable urged Colorado Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) to “check your fire on oil shale and give science and technlogy a chance to succeed so that America can achieve the tremendous promise of this huge American energy resource.” Britt Weygandt, Executive Director of the Western Business Roundtable, issued the statement in response to Senator Salazar’s continued opposition to even the issuance of preliminary environmental regulations to govern oil shale development on public lands.

Weygandt also praised the Bureau of Land Management for moving this week to increase U.S. energy security by publishing draft regulations to establish a commercial oil shale leasing program. “These proposed regulations are a critical step toward fostering the technology needed to develop this amazing resource in an environmentally and economically responsible manner,” said Weygandt.  “It is dismaying that our own Senator Salazar is drawing very negative conclusions about oil shale without allowing the government to lay down the rules of the road so that technology development can proceed.”

“We are fortunate that the business sector has given strong commitments to develop this technology to address the questions concerning oil shale development,” Weygandt said.  “This is very much a chicken-and-egg proposition without the government issuing preliminary environmental regulations to provide the rules of engagement, business will not be able to continue investing huge levels of capital into R&D.” “It is simply unreasonable to think that companies will be able to bear the huge capital expense involved in developing this technology to responsibly pursue oil shale resources without a viable commercial leasing program in place to justify the investment,” she added.

The Roundtable has long been a strong advocate for allowing BLM to finish its work to develop regulations providing for responsible oil shale development through commercial leasing of federal lands in the West because of the great potential oil shale offers,” Weygandt said. “This development could result in the addition of an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from lands in the West, which represents about three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia,” she said. See release here.