New fees sought on oil shale sites

The Bush administration proposed charging energy companies wanting to squeeze oil out of vast shale deposits in the West lower royalties than they pay for drilling on other federal lands, including in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.

In draft rules, the Interior Department recommended a range of royalty rates for the extraction of oil from shale on 2 million acres of public property in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. All would be less -- at least for a time -- than the 12.5% to 18.8% the government currently collects from companies producing oil on and offshore.