Interior Dept. to investigate Bush administration's oil shale deals

The Interior Department announced Tuesday it would open an investigation into whether the previous administration "set favorable conditions" to encourage oil-shale development in the Midwest.

The forthcoming review arrives to the satisfaction of local watchdogs and environmental groups, who have long questioned why President George W. Bush just five days before exiting office added a number of acres to its standing oil-shale leases and negotiated lower royalty rates without first notifying the public.

“Taxpayers deserve answers to serious questions about why these lease addenda were granted at the eleventh hour, under what circumstances, and at what potential expense to the federal treasury,” Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar explained in a statement Tuesday.

“We must reform our nation’s oil shale program and ensure that the American people have the promise of a fair return from their resources,” he added.

According to Salazar, who first conveyed his concerns in a letter to his Inspector General on Monday, the Bush administration's late revisions are suspicious because they could have provided "lucrative benefits to the leaseholders to the exclusion of others." Also concerning, he wrote, is that the public never had an opportunity to comment on the changes before they were made official.