The House Natural Resources Committee this morning advanced a bill on a mostly party-line vote that would resurrect a George W. Bush administration plan to promote oil shale development in the West.

The bill (H.R. 3408) from Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), chairman of the panel's Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, would mandate new leases in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah and guarantee royalty rates designed to encourage research and development.

The bill, which is part of a trio of Republican energy measures designed to create jobs and raise new revenues for highways, is designed to accelerate research and development of massive oil shale reserves that thus far have eluded energy companies eager to produce it commercially.

The measure passed on a 27-16 vote, carrying "yea" votes from Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) and Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), whose western Colorado district would see much of the development under the plan.

The bill was amended to prevent the Interior secretary from lowering royalty rates in the future and included language urging consideration of socioeconomic impacts, the hiring of U.S. workers and use of domestic products.

Democrats mostly opposed the bill, warning it would lift environmental laws and promote development of a risky energy source without fully understanding its impacts on air, water and local economies.

Critics also argued the bill would raise little, if any, revenue to support highway construction.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) offered an amendment that would have blocked the bill unless the Congressional Budget Office showed it would create positive revenues. All Republicans opposed the proposal and it was defeated.

The bill would block a settlement the Obama administration reached with environmental groups that requires Interior to re-evaluate the 2 million acres currently available for commercial oil shale development. The settlement also requires Interior re-evaluate whether to maintain the reduced Bush administration royalty rates (E&ENews PM, Feb. 15, 2011).

The committee today is also considering measures to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in parts of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, Alaska's Bristol Bay and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.