It's a move aimed at speeding up what Cannon calls a vast domestic energy source.

Utah, Colorado and Wyoming hold what some oil shale supporters say is a Saudi Arabian-size reserve of synthetic oil in sedimentary rock that can be heated and processed into a fuel source. Six companies are now exploring the ability to extract the oil shale in Utah, but none is close enough to produce a commercially feasible product.

Cannon, a Utah Republican who is seeking re-election and faces an intraparty battle with Jason Chaffetz in two weeks, says his legislation will dramatically cut the time needed to open up fields of oil shale under federal lands.

"We've been working on this for a long while, but the American people are ready for it right now," Cannon said. "Four-dollar-a-gallon gas demands it. I just paid $3.92 a gallon. That is enraging the American people."

The legislation, though, faces a difficult time on Capitol Hill, where several leaders have raised concerns about the ability to tap the oil shale without destroying public lands and using up scarce water in the West.

Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. Mark Udall, both Colorado Democrats, pushed through a ban last year against the Interior Department finishing up rules on oil shale leases, a prohibition that Cannon is attempting to bypass with his legislation.

Udall slammed Cannon's bill, saying it combines the Carter administration's "crash program" for oil shale and President Bush's "just-trust-the-president" attitude.

"It shows that some people have such a bad case of oil shale fever that they are ready to make Colorado's Western Slope a national sacrifice zone," Udall said. "It's almost a parody of sound energy policy - but, unfortunately, I think its author means every word of it."

Industry-backed Americans for American Energy, however, claims the congressional action blocking final rules on oil shale leasing is undermining the country and its energy future.

Such efforts "will put more money directly into the pockets of terrorist groups that are trying to kill Americans right now," the group's vice chairman and Utah legislator Aaron Tilton said in a news release from the group.

State Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, called the oil shale rule moratorium an example of the "kind of crackpot ideas the folks have come to expect from the out-of-touch Washington, D.C., crowd."

But Chase Huntley, a policy adviser on energy and climate change for The Wilderness Society, said Cannon's bill was more about opportunism than opportunity. Huntley says companies have owned land with oil shale resources for decades but none has been able to produce an oil shale product.

"I don't see how Cannon's proposal to allow the president to create this kind of leasing program would be able to discover what billions of dollars of taxpayer money and decades have research have been unable to - that's a commercially viable method to squeeze oil from rock," Huntley said.

But Cannon sees a good shot at getting his legislation passed, even under a Democratically controlled House and Senate. Democrats elected in 2006, who put the party into the majority, were largely conservative to moderate and ran on increasing energy production, he says.

"We suspect the voters in their districts can put some pressure on them to do something about high energy prices," Cannon says. "And this is, by far, the best thing."

Even if the bill passes next month, Cannon acknowledged no company could immediately start producing enough oil shale in the near future to make much of a difference in gas prices. He says, though, that passing the bill might signal to oil speculators to stop bidding up the price of crude oil if they fear a large, domestic source might be available.

Chaffetz called his primary opponent's bill, days before the election, a "P.R. stunt."

"He's had his chance, and the time to act was when Republicans had the House, the Senate and the White House," he said. "We didn't even have to ask a Democrat back then."

tburr@sltrib.com

* Opponents call the bill opportunistic, being rolled out just two weeks before the primary election, in which Chris Cannon faces an intraparty challenge. They also say it would open the door on environmental assaults for a technology that remains commercially unproven.

* Supporters say the current congressional ban on completion of oil shale leasing rules hurts Americans and helps terrorists.

Rep. Chris Cannon is introducing legislation he said would help ease the pain of climbing gasoline prices by easing restrictions on oil shale development.

* The Oil Shale Opportunity Act of 2008 would allow the president Ð be it President Bush or his successor Ð to bypass administrative rule-making on exploring and producing oil shale.

* That would allow skipping public notices, hearings, reviews and orders, and steer any legal action against the president's oil shale decision into federal courts.