10 U.S.C. § 8739 — Certain oil shale reserves: transfer of jurisdiction and petroleum exploration, development, and production

(a) Transfer Required. (1) As soon as this section became law, the Secretary of Energy had to transfer to the Secretary of the Interior administrative control over all public domain land in Oil Shale Reserve Numbered 1, and the undeveloped parts of Oil Shale Reserve Numbered 3. (2) By November 18, 1998, the Secretary of Energy also had to transfer control over the public domain land in the developed part of Oil Shale Reserve Numbered 3 — about 6,000 acres with 24 natural gas wells, plus their pipelines and related facilities. (3) Even after this transfer of control, the Secretary of Energy remains responsible for all environmental restoration, waste management, and environmental compliance work required by federal and state law for conditions that existed on the land at the time of transfer. (4) Once land transfers to the Secretary of the Interior under this subsection, the rest of this chapter no longer applies to that land. (b) Authority To Lease. (1) Starting November 18, 1997, or as soon as practical after that, the Secretary of the Interior must lease the land to one or more private companies to explore for, develop, and produce petroleum (not oil shale itself) located on public domain land in Oil Shale Reserves Numbered 1 and 3, including the developed part of Reserve Numbered 3. Every such lease must follow the oil-and-gas leasing rules of the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. 181 and following) and must respect valid existing rights. (2) Even though the transfer of the developed part of Reserve Numbered 3 is delayed under subsection (a)(2), the Secretary of the Interior still had to sign a lease for that developed part before November 18, 1998. (c) Management. The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, must manage the transferred land under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1701 and following) and other laws that apply to public lands. (d) Transfer of Existing Equipment. A lease of this land may include selling, at fair market value, any well, gathering line, or related equipment the United States owns on the transferred land, if it is suitable for exploring, developing, or producing petroleum there. (e) Cost Minimization. The cost of any environmental assessment required under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 and following), for a proposed lease under this section, must be paid from unobligated Bureau of Land Management administrative funds. (f) Treatment of Receipts. (1) Despite section 35 of the Mineral Leasing Act (30 U.S.C. 191), all money received during the period described in paragraph (2) from a lease under this section — including sales, bonuses, royalties (with interest under the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act of 1982), and rentals — must go into the U.S. Treasury and is not shared with the states under that section 35. (2) That period runs from November 18, 1997, until the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of the Interior jointly certify to Congress that the money deposited under paragraph (1) equals the total of: (A) the cost of all environmental restoration, waste management, and compliance work the United States has paid for on the transferred land; plus (B) the cost the United States originally paid to install wells, gathering lines, and related equipment there, plus any other U.S. cost tied to the land. (g) Use of Receipts. (1) The Secretary of the Interior may use, without needing a new appropriation, up to $1,500,000 of the money deposited under subsection (f)(1) to pay for extra analysis, site characterization, and geotechnical studies the Secretary thinks are needed to support environmental restoration, waste management, or compliance work at Oil Shale Reserve Numbered 3. When these studies are done, the Secretary of the Interior must send Congress a report with: (A) the studies' results and conclusions; and (B) an estimate of the total cost of the Secretary's preferred plan to handle environmental restoration, waste management, and compliance needs at Reserve Numbered 3. (2) If that cost estimate does not exceed the money deposited under subsection (f)(1) that is still available, the Secretary of the Interior may use that money — starting 60 days after submitting the report, and without a new appropriation — to pay for carrying out the preferred plan. If the estimate is higher than the available money, the Secretary of the Interior may only use that money if a later Act of Congress allows it.