"It's an offense to me that this decision is being withheld from Utah's governor and other elected officials in my state, and the fact that there are efforts to delay the decision even further only deepens the offense," Hatch told committee chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. at Thursday's hearing.

"It would be nice to pretend we're not dependent on oil, that we can skip immediately to some yet-to-be-identified alternative 30 years down the line. But we can't," Hatch said. "Truckers and farmers need diesel today. Moms need to get to soccer and ballet practice tonight, Americans want to visit their national parks this summer."

Hatch submitted a letter from Huntsman, who also requested that Senate appropriators lift the moratorium.

"Utah is home not only to substantial oil shale reserves (most of which are located upon BLM lands) but also to businesses willing to develop oil shale using new technology that will make extraction cleaner and more efficient," Huntsman wrote. "We have workers who will benefit from the jobs created by oil shale development, and state and federal regulators who are capable of ensuring that this resource is developed in an environmentally responsible manner."

Huntsman pointed out that as oil rises to more than $120 a barrel and as the country becomes more dependent on foreign oil, oil shale options need to be explored.

"We cannot afford to wait any longer to develop this critical energy resource," Huntsman wrote.

But Ritter, whose state also contains substantial oil shale resources, said establishing a leasing program prior to understanding what technologies are viable "would be a dangerous course, with enormous risk of unintended consequences."

"The approach put forward by the BLM is unwise," Ritter said of the draft environmental report issued earlier by the agency. It is not clear how much water the industry would need, the environmental impacts, effects on wildlife or the amount of energy needed to produce oil shale, Ritter said. He would rather see the moratorium stay in place until the BLM has enough information.

Steve Smith, assistant regional director for The Wilderness Society's Denver office, said oil shale development could hurt more than 2 million acres of wild public lands, including western Colorado's Piceance Basin and Utah's San Rafael Swell.

"Federal managers, local citizens and their leaders and the industry itself need additional time to evaluate whether and how well the new oil shale extraction technologies work and how they could affect local economies, communities and the natural environment so key to both," Smith said.

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E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com