On Sept. 18, The Daily Sentinel ran a story (“Moratorium maybe?”) stating that Rep. Matheson proposed a compromise on lifting the oil shale moratorium. Unfortunately, this proposal was dropped in favor of completely lifting the moratorium. Your readers deserve to know that oil shale is no panacea.

Despite an ongoing research and development program on Bureau of Land Management lands, and decades of research on tens of thousands of acres held privately by industry, no company has yet developed a commercially viable process for efficiently and safely squeezing oil from oil shale rock. In fact, commercial oil shale development poses serious threats to the global climate and the communities, economies, water resources, air quality, and environment of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The spending limitation that expired on October 1 did not impede research on oil shale designed to examine and address these threats, it simply allowed more time for that research to proceed.

If we seriously wanted to decrease American dependence on foreign oil—and not just give away more of our public lands to the oil and gas industry—the White House and their allies on the hill should have spent the summer advocating for incentives for the nascent wind and solar industries and for new measures to encourage energy efficiency. With proper investment, each of these industries stands ready to contribute to American energy security today. Oil shale, on the other hand, remains years if not decades away from viability by industry’s own admission.

The Bush administration’s veto threats on extending the moratoriam on oil shale regulations and offshore drilling, as well as investment in renewable, clean technologies have shown that they and their allies in Congress favor political gamesmanship over true American energy security. Oil shale development is another false promise made to average Americans like you and me.

CHASE HUNTLEY
The Wilderness Society
Washington, DC

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