The Rocky Mountain News reports:The Obama administration might reopen the debate over energy development on Colorado's Roan Plateau, and it's not going to "rush headlong" into oil shale development in the state, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters Thursday. Salazar's statements came in the wake of his first big decision as a member of President Barack Obama's Cabinet: Wednesday's announcement that he would void dozens of oil and gas leases on sensitive federal lands in southeastern Utah. The Utah decision provoked a swift backlash from Republican lawmakers and outside groups, who accused him of doing the bidding of Hollywood environmentalists and ignoring the nation's energy needs. But rather than backing down Thursday, Salazar offered some of his most forceful statements yet about the change the new administration will begin bringing to public lands policy. "The position I take is the same position I took while I was a U.S. senator," Salazar said. "There are places that are very special and should be protected. There are places which ought to be explored and developed." He said the Interior Department was in the process of examining 12 to 15 decisions made at the tail end of the Bush administration and decide, perhaps within the next month, whether to reverse them or let them stand...
1 comment:
here is a question for the exerts to answer. Why can't oil shale be burned just like coal. I know it burns. The indians used it as fuel to keep warm in the winter, or so they say, at Firehole in Sweetwater County Wyoming
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