Utah governor says state is "open for business' for oil shale development A U.S. Interior Department official Monday defended, and Utah’s governor supported, the federal government’s push to remove regulatory hurdles to commercial oil shale development on public land. Foster Wade, deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals for the Interior Department, and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, spoke at a Colorado School of Mines oil shale symposium attended by some 350 people from around the world. Wade said the Bureau of Land Management’s efforts on oil shale come in response to the gap between the nation’s energy needs and supplies. “We have an energy demand that we are unable to meet at this point in time. We need to be working on all fuel energy in order to try to make up that deficit,” he said. Huntsman said his state holds an estimated 77 billion barrels of recoverable oil shale. A Republican, he urged the Interior Department to move forward with issuing commercial leasing regulations before a new presidential administration takes over in January. “My bottom line to you is, we in our state are open for business” for oil shale development, Huntsman told the symposium audience, which included numerous industry representatives....