Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck (D - District 24)
Representative Rebecca Chavez-Houck wrote a great Op-Ed in the Salt Lake Tribune this weekend about the pitfalls and dangers behind oil shale and tar sand development in Utah, calling it a “game of poker.” Read it below!
I am not good at playing poker. I can’t bluff and am totally inept in figuring out what other players have in their hands. The ongoing debate about the economic benefits of investing in oil shale and tar sands development is like playing a game of poker, where one side may be a bit more adept at bluffing than the other.
Gov. Gary Herbert and our congressional delegation have objected to the Bureau of Land Management’s recent proposal to lease public lands in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado for oil shale and tar sands development. They accuse the agency of exerting heavy-handedness with no scientific backing.
It’s time for a fact check. In a recent study, the BLM proposed several options to allow the leasing of federal lands in the three states for further research and development. The options would leave open anywhere from 5,700 to 253,000 acres in Utah for R&D on oil shale, and more than twice that in the entire tri-state region when tar sands leasing is included.
That’s right. More than half a million acres of public lands would be made available for two sources of energy that have so far not been proven to be financially viable or safe. The BLM is being extremely patient and generous. In essence, they’re saying, “We’ll give you up to half a million acres to prove this process is viable. When you do, we’ll then talk about more leasing.”
A process for extracting fuel from shale rock has been elusive for more than a century. Why is it so difficult? Partly, it’s because oil shale doesn’t…
Read the rest of Representative Chavez-Houck’s OpEd HERE