Washington » Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is asking for an investigation of an 11th-hour Bush administration change to oil shale leases in Utah and Colorado that he says may be illegal.

At the same time, Salazar says he's opening a second, more rigidly controlled round of leases for companies trying to find a commercially feasible way to produce synthetic fuel from oil shale in the Rocky Mountain region.

Salazar on Tuesday sent a letter to Interior's inspector general asking for a probe into changes President George W. Bush's Interior Department made to six existing leases -- including one in Utah -- that Salazar says greatly benefited the leaseholders at the expense of taxpayers.

The Bush administration tweaked the leases five days before leaving office and set a royalty rate of five percent of revenues.

"There are serious questions about whether lease [changes] are legal or whether they should be rescinded," Salazar said.

But Salazar -- who halted any movement on oil shale leasing in February, saying more study was needed -- announced the department would now lease additional parcels in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming for research and development of oil shale. The companies awarded leases would have to act on the land within two years and provide quarterly progress reports.

"We have a duty to ensure that potential oil shale development is done responsibly," Salazar said. "We

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want to avoid the booms and busts of the past."

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance Conservation Director Steve Bloch was encouraged by Salazar's request for an investigation into those lease changes days before President Barack Obama took office.

"It obviously smells that something would happen at the last minute," he said.

But Bloch said the second round of oil shale leases is unnecessary and that companies already hold thousands of acres of state and private land to attempt to develop energy.

"I think that oil shale continues to be this elusive will-o'-the-wisp that we're chasing," Bloch said.

Bobby McEnaney, public lands expert at the Natural Resources Defence Council, said the history of oil shale has been "plagued with scandal and cronyism" and Salazar's move provides a better approach to protect public lands.

Oil shale supporters said Salazar's announcement was a mixed bag. The industry hopes that the Interior boss is sincere in wanting to develop a market-ready oil shale product, but, "we're skeptical at this point," says Jeff Hartley, a consultant working for a coalition of Utah energy producers.

"Our concern is that this may be a veiled attempt to slow down the development of new technologies," Hartley says.

Rep. Rob Bishop, a Utah Republican who has pushed to open up more public lands for oil exploration, says there's no doubt these new rules will delay the development of "America's vast oil shale reserves."

"The [Interior Department] can wrap a bow around it and call it whatever they want, but the bottom line is that Secretary Salazar's announcement today clearly reflects this administration's lack of commitment to achieve long-term domestic energy independence," Bishop said.

Salazar had yanked a proposed lease sale in February, and his new plans dramatically decrease the amount of land a company could ultimately lease, from 5,129 acres to 640 acres. It also triples the application fee and allows the secretary to set a royalty rate at a later time.

Oil shale proponents argue there are billions of barrels of oil that can be obtained from rock deposits in the Rocky Mountain region. Several companies are attempting to pull kerogen -- a chemical compound that can be turned into a synthetic diesel or jet fuel -- from sedimentary rock in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.

But environmentalists argue that no one has yet come up with a commercially practical process to produce oil.

tburr@sltrib.com