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The measure would provide the Interior Department a year to complete an ongoing environmental review -- called a programmatic environmental impact statement -- of oil shale development. It would also provide governors of the affected states with more time to comment.

Other provisions, according to his office, would provide one year for developing a commercial leasing program and require increased reporting to Congress by Interior about ongoing research and development and other issues before commercial leasing occurs. Congress, in a broad federal spending bill late last year, barred Interior from completing commercial leasing rules in fiscal 2008.

The bill would also authorize a new National Academy of Sciences study on oil shale that includes review of environmental and socioeconomic effects and require site-specific environmental impact statements before lease sales and planned development, his office said.

An aide said Salazar supports oil shale development and believes it could potentially bring an economic boom to Colorado's Western Slope. But he wants to avoid a repeat of the early 1980s, when efforts to produce the massive resource collapsed as oil prices tumbled. In 1982, Exxon closed its Colony II project in Colorado, taking large numbers of jobs with it.

"He wants to ensure that does not happen again and that anything we do in the future is thoughtful and deliberative and takes a reasonable approach to oil shale development," said spokeswoman Stephanie Valencia. She said Salazar, who is a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is looking for ways to move the bill this year.

Salazar is also concerned about the environmental effects of oil shale development, noting in a statement that the Piceance Basin region where shale development may occur is already slated to be the site of thousands of natural gas wells.

The Green River shale formation -- that spans parts of the three states -- may contain an estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil. While past development efforts have gone bust, shale is generating renewed interest amid high oil prices and concerns about import reliance. Environmentalists, however, fear it will lead to new greenhouse gas emissions and ecological harms.

The Energy and Natural Resources Committee is holding a hearing tomorrow about the prospects for oil shale and the risks that come with it (E&E Daily, May 12).

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