Rep. Lamborn's Oil Shale Proposal Gets A Hearing

DENVER (AP) -- A Colorado Republican's proposal for promoting oil shale research is getting a hearing.

Rep. Doug Lamborn's proposal was on the agenda for a hearing of the House subcommittee on energy and mineral resources Friday morning.

He wants the Interior Department to offer more parcels of federal land that companies could lease to conduct research on oil shale development.

Companies are already drilling shale formations to extract liquid oil. But they're still researching how to economically produce oil from oil shale, which contains a substance called kerogen that must be heated at high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment before it can release oil.

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