American Jobs and Energy Security: Domestic Oil Shale - The Status of Research, Regulation and Roadblocks

Today, we are here specifically to discuss one of the most challenging, tantalizing, and promising sources of energy our country has to offer, oil shale. The United States is blessed with tremendous oil shale resources. Nearly 75 percent of the world’s recoverable oil shale is estimated to be located in this country, and we have been called by some the "Saudi Arabia of oil shale." Much of that is located right here around us in this three-State region, where, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Western United States may hold more than 1.5 trillion barrels of oil, enough to provide us, if it were to be used and produced, with energy for the next 200 years.