The latest Interior Department Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed plan on oil shale and oil sands leasing on western lands has come under attack from the chairman of a prominent House energy subcommittee.

BLM’s proposed plan, which was announced last week, said the agency would make 700,000 acres of land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming available for research and development of oil shale and 130,000 acres in Utah available for tar sands research. But Rep Ed Whitfield (R-KY), chairman of the House and Energy Power Subcommittee, said the initiative would block an additional 1.6 million acres of federal lands from leasing.

Oil shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen; which is often confused with “shale oil.” While shale oil can be produced very similarly to shale gas, developing oil shale requires the extraction of kerogen from the surrounding rock, then processing it using extremely high heat and pressure to yield petroleum-like liquid.

“This proposal will place further limitations on the exploration and development of our country’s natural resources and is yet another example of how this administration continues to stand in the way of North American energy independence,” he noted.

“The president is locking up an area that contains about 1.5 trillions bbl of recoverable oil — that’s about as much recoverable oil as the rest of the world’s proven reserves combined. This is after we saw oil production on federal lands decline by an average of 275,000 bbl/d in fiscal year 2011,” he noted.

Colorado BLM already has signed two leases for research, demonstration and development of oil shale to encourage industry to develop and test technologies aimed at developing oil shale resources on a commercial scale. The leases will go into effect on December 1, the agency said. The approved leases were awarded to ExxonMobil Exploration Co. and Natural Soda Holdings Inc., which submitted proposals for the in-situ development of oil shale on adjacent 160-acre parcels in Rio Blanco County near Meeker, CO.

“Today’s leases demonstrate our continued commitment to encouraging research and development that will help fill in some of the existing knowledge gaps when it comes to technology, water use and potential impacts of commercial-scale oil shale development,” said BLM Colorado State Director Helen Hankins. “To date, technological and economic conditions have not combined to support a sustained commercial oil shale industry, and this plan lays a strong foundation to explore oil shale’s potential.”