With gas prices reaching the $4 a gallon level, supporters of extracting oil shale say Congress' ban on finishing rules is hampering development of the new fuel source.

"As the price of oil surpasses $120 per barrel and we become increasingly dependent on foreign oil, our national security is in jeopardy," Huntsman said in a letter to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "We cannot afford to wait any longer to develop this critical energy resource. The opportunity for environmentally sound energy development must be supported."

But in a Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, an amendment to push forward with regulations on oil shale regulations failed on a party-line vote, with Democrats killing the move.

Former Rep. Jim Hansen, a Utah Republican now lobbying for Alabama-based Oil Shale Exploration Co., complained before the committee that it seems there is an anti-oil-shale vendetta in Congress.

"Who's got it in for oil shale?" Hansen asked, noting there weren't such restrictions on ethanol. "Oil shale seems like it's the whipping boy in this instance."

Hansen also repeated the oft-used claim that Utah, Colorado and Wyoming are the "Saudi Arabia of oil shale" in that there are an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of recoverable oil there.

"As far as we're concerned, this isn't a science project," Hansen told the committee. "This is a provable technology."

There will be some disturbance of public lands, Hansen said, adding that, "I totally agree you should be environmentally friendly." But the area his company is looking to develop is made up of just "sagebrush."

Supporters say extracting oil shale - which involves heating the rock until it produces a liquid that can be processed into heating oil or jet fuel - is key to the nation lessening its dependence on foreign sources of energy. But critics say the technology is still unproven and could create an environmental disaster if developers move forward too quickly.

Congress passed a law barring the finalization of regulations for commercial oil shale development, a move Stephen Allred, assistant secretary of the Interior Department, says may discourage private investment in researching the oil shale extraction technology.

But Steve Smith of the Wilderness Society challenged that comment, saying that companies have long had access to the land where they believe oil shale is available and are still far away from producing "tangible results."

"No technology or company is, in any way, ready to develop oil shale at a commercial scale," Smith said, adding that those companies have yet to prove they can access the oil without using "immense amounts of energy" and generating "huge increases in greenhouses gases."

Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman said he was sympathetic to the concerns about trying to move ahead on domestic sources of energy, but that the nation should be careful about rushing ahead too fast.

"In this era of soaring prices and increasing dependence on foreign oil, our domestic oil shale resources can potentially play an important role," Bingaman said. "However, we must proceed with care as we craft a policy leading to its future development."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, who testified at the start of the hearing in favor of repealing the ban on setting the final regulations, said there is no room in Congress for an "anti-oil or anti-oil-shale attitude."

If local officials in Utah, Colorado or Wyoming want to slow down on development of oil shale, that's fine, Hatch said, but Congress should not hold those states back from exploring their vast amount of oil shale resources.

"It's not right for my state and it's not right for Americans who are sending their money to our competitors overseas," Hatch said.

tburr@sltrib.com