Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that a second round of oil shale research and development on leases with vastly diminished potential commercial acreage will resume.
Secretary Salazar's decision is a positive step in the process of developing the innovation and technology needed to bring production from the nation's vast oil shale resources to American consumers.
However, we are concerned with some of the new second-round lease terms--specifically the decision to reduce by 87 percent the total potential commercial lease size. Slashing the size of the potential commercial lease diminishes the incentives for investment and ignores the enormous up-front costs and risks undertaken to develop these technologically complex resources.
Oil shale deposits in the Green River formation in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah hold an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable resources, which, if commercially viable, could bolster America's energy security, provide additional U.S. jobs and bring in much-needed government revenue.
Visit the Action Center to tell the administration and Congress to act now and put America's energy to work for Americans.
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