While Salazar is cautious, Bennett and Hatch are reckless.

The Colorado senator's skepticism comes from something deeper than a partisan filter or presidential-election talking points. Salazar has real-world experience. Utah's senators only wish they did.

"History has a lot to do with it," says Steve Andrews, co-founder of the nonpartisan Colorado-based Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas.

Salazar was there when oil shale went bust, on "Black Sunday" in 1982 when Exxon pulled out, when Utah's neighbor was plunged into an oil-drunk hangover.

"That left a scar on the Colorado political landscape and the Western Slope psyche," Andrews says.

Normally, you'd expect three senators from the same region to agree on the economic development wonders - and unspoken political benefits - of a new source of oil lurking under the rocks at our border. Utah's senators are singing with the industry choir. At a Capitol Hill news conference with oil speculators, Bennett said it's "irresponsible" and "malicious" not to plow forward with more leases now. But Salazar is more cautious.

"Each time we near a boom, we bust," Salazar wrote in a Washington Post column last month. "We must avoid the pitfalls that have trapped us in the past: the speculation and hype, the shortage of water and power, and the failure to plan for environmental and social impacts.

"Unless development proceeds in a thoughtful and responsible manner, we risk another massive bust."

Hatch and Bennett countered in their own op-ed a few days later: "We must find more oil in our country. Fortunately, we don't have to look far to find it."

Andrews says all three senators are reacting to a "sense of impatience" in Washington.

The prospect of 800 billion barrels of oil under Utah, Colorado and Wyoming is almost too good to resist in an election year with $4-a-gallon gasoline prices. Despite critics who say the rock-locked kerogen can't be melted out in significant quantities until 2015 - and not without devastating environmental consequences - politicians want to soothe voters.

"Washington wants to be perceived as being proactive. This is purely a perception game," says Andrews. "Elected officials are just not being honest with people. They're used to giving out sugar, rather than medicine. I do not expect honesty between now and the election. It will just be pure pandering."

Walt Hecox, a Colorado College economics professor, says conservatives and liberals are both right - and wrong.

"We do need additional supplies of oil, of course. We also need to conserve," says Hecox, who worked for the Colorado Department of Natural Resources during the shale boom. "We also need to be cognizant that the technology is extremely experimental and probably not commercially viable unless it's heavily subsidized."

Both Hecox and Andrews say members of Congress need to come together to acknowledge America's looming oil-supply crisis and draft a comprehensive national energy plan.

Neither is particularly optimistic.

"We're flailing away," says Hecox. "We don't have a congressional capability to think rationally about a sensible energy strategy."

Maybe it's time for Bennett and Hatch to call Salazar.

walsh@sltrib.com