Although possible for many years, recovery of oil from shale has only recently become economical. Rising prices of crude oil on the world market and concern over the foreign policy implications of the United States' increased reliance of foreign sources has heightened interest in oil shale.

On November 28, 1973, Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton announced a prototype program for leasing of federal land for shale oil development. The first lease sale took place only six weeks later, January 8, 1974, and subsequent sales will follow each month until the last of the six proposed tracts is leased. Each tract consists of 5,120 acres located in the sheep and cattle grazing country of the Green River Formation of the Rocky Mountains. Two tracts are located in each of three states—Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The richest deposits are in Colorado and the poorest in Wyoming. The Green River Formation is estimated to contain 600 billion barrels of oil, an amount that could supply the nation's needs at present consumption rates for almost a century. The federal government owns more than 70 percent of the total lands containing oil shale.