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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Critics: Not So Fast on Pioneers Act

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Monday, February 13, 2012   

BOULDER, Colo. - New figures from the Congressional Budget Office raise questions about fast-tracking expansion of oil-shale exploration in Colorado and the mountain West.

The CBO says oil-shale exploration in the region would offer no major financial benefits to the federal government.

The Pioneers Act, sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., releases up to 2 million acres of western public land for oil-shale exploration leases. However, Matthew Garrington, co-director of the Checks and Balances Project, says the Bureau of Land Management's competing proposal - which would open up a half million acres for exploration - is more than adequate.

"Industry's got a half million acres to play around with and try and make it work. Once we know what that technology looks like and that technology exists, then I think it would be a different conversation."

Lamborn claims there are more than 1.5 trillion barrels of oil in shale fields, and the industry would provide hundreds of thousands of jobs. But the CBO estimates it would be at least a decade and perhaps longer before any of those jobs are created.

Garrington says the oil and gas industry isn't convinced that oil shale will be a huge profit center.

"Some of the biggest players in industry are saying it's a decade out, which is in stark contrast to how this bill is being sold to the American public."

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, claims oil-shale revenues would offer a way to rebuild the nation's crumbling transportation infrastructure. However, the CBO report says the oil shale leases under the Pioneers Act would come to less than $100,000 a year during the next decade, while infrastructure improvements are estimated to cost about $40 billion.

The CBO report is online at cbo.gov.


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