{"id":1143,"date":"2008-09-24T20:06:30","date_gmt":"2008-09-24T20:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2008-09-24T20:06:30","modified_gmt":"2008-09-24T20:06:30","slug":"gov-bill-ritter-objected-to-prematurely-move-forward-with-commercial-oil-shale-development-in-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/gov-bill-ritter-objected-to-prematurely-move-forward-with-commercial-oil-shale-development-in-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Bill Ritter objected to prematurely move forward with commercial oil-shale development in Colorado."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

n Oil Shale\u009d<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Washington<\/b><\/strong>, DC<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The fight to establish an orderly process for the development of oil shale suffered a setback today, as the White House was successful in its effort to block an extension of the limited funding limitation on the issuance of commercial oil shale leasing regulations, which expires on September 30.\u00a0 The White House has stated its intent to rush ahead with the issuance of final regulations for the development of oil shale, despite having no idea how much water would be required to develop oil shale, how much power would be needed, or whether the technologies are even commercially viable.\u00a0 The White House had threatened to shut down the federal government unless the moratorium on finalizing commercial oil shale regulations was lifted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The following is the joint statement of Sen. Salazar, Cong. Salazar, and Cong. Udall.<\/p>\n

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\u0153The White House is evidently willing to go to all extremes to trample on the will of Western communities.\u00a0 \u00a0They were threatening to shut down the entire federal government \u2013 at a moment when our economy is in crisis \u2013 over two issues:\u00a0 offshore drilling and oil shale development.\u00a0 We support the responsible development of our oil and gas resources at home \u2013 Colorado alone is home to more than 34,000 gas wells – and we support comprehensive energy solutions that include the expansion of offshore development.\u00a0 However, it is clear that the Bush Administration is clueless about the realities of oil shale development.\u00a0 By rushing ahead toward commercial leasing, they are putting at risk the very objective we hope to achieve – responsible oil shale development – by heightening the chance of another devastating bust.\u00a0 The White House’s approach is foolhardy and their \u02dcmy way or the highway’ tactics deplorable.<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u0153We have fought hard to extend the current funding limitation, which prevents the issuance of commercial oil shale leases, because we need to continue with an orderly process that allows necessary research and development to be completed first.\u00a0 Our first choice for the coming year was to extend that moratorium and continue to protect the R&D programs we helped create.\u00a0 We were open to a second alternative, proposed by Congressman Matheson, that would allow states to opt in to commercial oil shale leasing.\u00a0 This would have allowed the State of Colorado to determine the future of oil shale development within its borders.\u00a0 Neither of these options was sufficient for a White House that, in its waning days in office, is hell bent on running roughshod over Colorado and the West.\u00a0<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u0153When Congress reconvenes in January, we will fight to restore an orderly process for oil shale development so that Colorado’s land, water, and communities are protected.\u00a0 \u00a0We continue to believe that Western wisdom, gained from our century of work to develop oil shale, offers a far better chance of getting us to our goal of responsible commercial oil shale development than the eleventh hour schemes of an outgoing Administration.\u009d\u00a0<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

n Oil Shale\u009d Washington, DC\u00a0\u2013 The fight to establish an orderly process for the development of oil shale suffered a setback today, as the White House was successful in its effort to block an extension of the limited funding limitation on the issuance of commercial oil shale leasing regulations, which expires on September 30.\u00a0 The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"anons"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradowildlife.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}