Adverse possession of the land by government, e.g., for grazing leases, oil drilling, hunting, etc. Oil shale is a non-metallic mineral of widespread occurrence. All the 430,000 acres already patented containing it cannot be simultaneously or proximately developed, so pending claims should be treated according to the restrictive discovery rules formerly applicable to sand and gravel mining claims (marketability at a profit). Failure to develop claim for mining within a reasonable time. Abandonment of claim (as among other indicia, acquisition under quit-claim deed for nominal consideration, and use of assessment work procedures under 30 U.S.C. 28 to forfeit out original co-owners). Deception of original locators or misuse of forfeiture procedures to deny them due notice should also be considered. Failure to do assessment work in past years and failure to answer charges in contest complaints in the 1920's and 1930's are good evidence. Issuance of conflicting patents and/or conflicting claims located for metalliferous minerals in late 1965 through early 1967. Land in the claim is non-mineral in character. Non-mineral land of 10 acres or more on Claim not valid and subsisting on February 25, 1920 and continuously since then. Fraud in location or application for patent. Contravenes or denies established or higher public use of land (e.g., for coal classification or withdrawals antedating the claims or other purposes) under guise of a mining claim. Failure to meet affirmative standards for a productive venture to produce oil commercially in 69 years of claims. Lack from February 25, 1920, of foreseeable economic prospects for future profitable commercial oil production from shale within a reasonable period, e.g., 20 years. Claim previously investigated and declared null and void by Interior Department by "old decisions" for failure to do assessment work and other reasons. The Congress should enact these criteria for determining validity of pending oil shale claims and stipulate that the Department of Interior must use them where applicable, in determining validity. The Congress should also give the Department adequate time for determining validity of pending claims so that required full field investigations can be made and contests can be prepared and conducted. 15. Huge wealth is involved in oil shale claims. Should not claimants be required to submit full documentation in support of claims and be required to do so under oath, subject to the same sort of penalties as we are required to face when we submit even the smallest tax return to the I.R.S.? The burden of proof should be on the claimants. 16. The development of oil shale will require much water and/or cause much air and land pollution. Studies from EPA more than a decade ago indicated that the production of oil from shale might require use of more energy than it produces. The threat of the global "Green House" effect due to excess carbon dioxide in the air raises a major question about the future of oil from oil shale. Should more public lands be turned over to private hands on the face of these environmental uncertainties about the feasibility of oil shale development? 17. The authors Tolchin have alerted America that foreigners have been buying American assets "on the cheap" with devalued dollars. If the Congress continues to allow Interior to "privatize" the public oil shale, we can look forward to having Colorado oil shale bought by the Japanese to provide oil for the factories of Japan - while the environment in Colorado is desecrated by pollution from mining and extracting the oil. How do oil shale resources fit into our energy picture for national security purposes? The Congress should proscribe sale of oil shale rights to foreign-owned companies or foreign governments. Recommendations to the Congress. - To protect the public interest properly and also to do justice to the claimants who still have pending oil shale claims located before February 25, 1920, I suggest the following actions by the Congress: 1. Embargo further patenting of pending oil shale claims including those that were in the pipeline on January 24, 1989. 2. Direct the Secretary of Interior to complete a full investigation of the geologic and economic validity of the criteria established in Freeman v. Summers and in Andrus, to identify the full array of other criteria applicable to proper determination of the validity of claims and to take necessary legal and administrative action to bring the criteria for patenting of oil shale claims in line with those that are used for other minerals and in line with geological facts and proper economic criteria. Then the Congress should enact the criteria. 3. Order the new Secretary of Interior to investigate the 1986 settlement and the disposals of the 82,000 acres of oil shale lands for propriety, validity, proper procedure, and adequacy of discharge of the Secretary of Interior's trusteeship responsibilities as public guardian of the U.S. government's public domain lands. Require the Secretary, based on such full investigation, to report to the Congress within one year its findings and proposed corrective actions that are needed to recover any lands that might have been improperly divested from public ownership. 4. Direct the Secretary of Interior to make a study and report to the Congress what it would require for the government to "buy out" all pending oil shale claims by reimbursing claimants for their prior development and other actual costs. 5. Congress should take action to authorize a full oversight investigation of Interior Department management and disposals of oil shale lands since 1920, including particularly the disposals in 1986-1987. This review should be done with the assistance of the General Accounting Office and should cover the scope which I carefully outlined for the Senate Subcommittee on Mineral Resources Development and Production in their Hearing record of October 16, 1987 (S. Hrg. 100-527 at pp. 191-192). I include those points in this Statement by reference. Such a review would clearly be in the public interest. The people of the U.S. deserve to know factually how their oil shale lands were mismanaged; on what basis disposals were made and who got them in the end; and whether such disposals were in accordance with the law and serve the public interest. The roots of the oil shale land mismanagement go back to the Teapot Dome era in the 1920's. There was a national furor over the oil leases in the Teapot Dome lands by Interior out that the Secretary of Interior, Albert Fall, had taken bribes. The oil shale land disposals from 1920 through 1988 were sanctioned by Interior officials. They entailed Federal resource disposals and enrichment of successful claimants on a scale which makes the Teapot Dome amounts look tiny. The 1986 "settlement" which was made by Interior and Justice without carrying the government's case to the appellate Courts appears highly questionable. The county does not know how these disposals happened, on what authority they were based, why they happened, and who was really responsible? Given the huge oil shale disposals still pending, the Congress has a duty to investigate the validity of past and pending oil shale land disposals in view of the documented statements in official, professionally-prepared Interior briefs that applicable laws had been widely disregarded. There is also widespread public and editorial skepticism about the oil shale land disposals at $2.50 an acre -and even at $2,000 an acre. To enact new bills which perpetuate the disposal process under one guise or another is utterly unsound public policy. Before it allows any further disposal of oil shale the Congress should therefore thoroughly investigate the oil shale situation and determine in what ways laws might have been disregarded or violated, and how much in public oil shale lands and resources might have been lost as a result. The Congress should also diagnose what caused the breakdown in public policy and public management which the Interior briefs have described. Attachments: Denver Post clippings, 7/16/88 and 12/13/88 Rocky Mountain News clipping, 7/17/87 Interior staff memo of 6/16/80 urging Petition for Rehearing in Andrus v. Shell. 8/10/89 (303) 494-4871 Oil shale claims deal near accord Derwer Post Wire Services RIFLE - (il shale claimants angry at 60 years of government stalling and two Colorado Democrals bent on protecting public ac cess to the Piceance Basin reached an agreement of sorts on oil shale claims Thursday. They agreed to form a commit tee, under the auspices of the Asso ciated Governments of Northwest Colorado, to attempt to seek a compromise that could be introduced in Congress. Rep. Ben Night horse Campbell, D-Colo., and Sen. Tim Wirth, D. Colo., have introduced bills to convert the disputed oil shale claims, most of them dating back to World War I, into leases. Campbell's bill passed the House last year, while Sen. Bill Arm strong. R-Colo, concerned over the property rights of the shale claimants, has Wirth's bill bottled up in the Senate. Wirth and Campbell want to pre vent another round of patenting by the Interior Department under which 82,000 acres of oil shale lands were deeded to claimholders in 1986 for a filing fee of $2.50 per acre Claim sold to Shell One of the largest claimholders to patent claims was the Tell Ertl estate, which then turned around and sold 17,000 acres, acquired for $2.50 per acre, to Shell Oil Co. for $37 million. That brought cries of speculation, a federal lands fire sale and the Campbell-Wirth legislation. Joe Fox, attorney for the Ertl estate, said Thursday the estate still holds some property and has used the Shell sale as capital to invest in research in hopes of using oil shale to strengthen asphalt. That project is ongoing in Rifle, and instead of "paying attorneys to fight the government, we're now paying people in Rifle to work out there," Fox said. Campbell, Wirth and Armstrong were represented by aides Dan McAuliffe, Audrey Berry and Christine Kadlub, respectively. They agreed with Rio Blanco Commissioner Peggy Rector, who chaired the meeting, to take part in a committee to seek a compromise. Claimholders, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, National Wild. life Federation and Colorado De partment of Natural Resources are likely to have representatives named to the panel More than Saudi Arabia At issue is the eventual disposi· tion of an estimated 270,000 acres of oil shale lands in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. They all are part of the Green River Formation, which is said to contain more oil than Saudi Arabia. Under the 1872 Mining Law, prospectors can stake claims to minerals, do five years of amnensment work, defined as spending $100 per year, and then file for a patent on their claim. In 1920, Congress passed the Minerals Leaning Act, which shifted a number of minerals, including coal, oil and oil shale, into a leasing category, not claims. The claims at issue were staked before 1920. اخر Tuesday, December 13, 1988 THE DENVER POST Interior Dept. revives shale land 'giveaway' By Gary Schmitz Denver Post Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Barely a month before leaving office, the Reagan administration has resurrected a controversial program that gives oil shale lands in Colorado and Utah to energy companies and land speculators for just $2.50 an acre. Congress imposed a moratorium on such transactions in 1987 after the Interior Department turned over 82,000 acres of federal shale lands in Colorado. Environmental groups and House and Senate Democrats assailed the massive property transfer as a "giveaway" of publicly owned resources. But with the moratorium expired and repeated congressional attempts to adopt a permanent prohibition having failed, Interior's Bureau of Land Management says it will begin processing an addition al 250,000 acres of claims scattered across the high plateaus and rug. ged canyons of western Colorado and eastern Utah. "Congress has adjourned with out enacting oil shale legislation, (and) the department feels compelled to carry out its duties," James Cason, assistant interior secretary for land and minerals management, wrote leaders on Capitol Hill. Interior Department officials, defending their policy before several congressional inquiries, insisted the land transfers were supported by the 1872 Mining Law and a lengthy history of court rulings. Ignacio Democratic Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, whose district includes most of the shale lands at issue, questioned the Interior decision. "This is typical coming from this administration," Campbell said. OIL SHALE PLAN BAFFECTS 250,000 acres. COST: $2.50 per acre. THERE ARE 1,575 mining claims for oil shale; applications have been filed to take ownership of 334 of those claims. "Why do they have to push the deadline... the second the moratorium runs out. What's their hurry?" Campbell vowed to reintroduce his legislation that would severely restrict future shale land transfers. In the meantime, he said he will "continue to put pressure on the department" to scrutinize claims carefully. Federal law allows those who stake out mining claims to take title to surface lands, provided several tests are met, for a nominal filing fee of $2.50 per acre. That legal process, known as "patenting a claim," holds firm for minerals like gold and silver. But Please see SHALE on 9-A |