Gridlock in the Congress over energy policy may actually benefit those who want to expand the push for domestic resources in the US - a good example of that is oil shale.

Last year, Democrats inserted a provision in a budget bill that prohibits the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from issuing any final regulations for oil shale leasing on federal lands in the West.

But like the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration, the oil shale leasing ban is just a one year provision, which has to be renewed by the Congress.

Right now though, all budget bills are on hold in the House, as Democrats shelved that work because they evidently did not want to let Republicans force votes on a series of energy-related amendments and initiatives.

The downside for Democrats is that as of October 1, the ban on new offshore oil and gas exploration vanishes for all but a chunk of the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the ban on oil shale leasing also evaporates.

Because of that, the Interior Department issued draft regulations for oil shale leasing on Tuesday.

"We need to be doing more to develop our own energy at home," said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, a former Senator and Governor of Idaho, "through resources such as oil shale."

Oil shale is a sedimentary rock out west, from which you can extract chemicals that can then be processed into crude oil.  The estimate is that there could be 800 billion barrels of in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

In 2005, Republicans used an energy bill to lay out the plans for leasing federal lands in the West to exploit oil shale.

Many Democrats oppose it, as this is just like the fight over new offshore drilling or opening ANWR.  Republicans want to give it the green light.  Democrats do not.

In a conference call with reporters Tuesday afternoon, officials were asked how long it would take for crude to make it from oil shale in the ground to the market.  The answer was 7-8 years if everything went along without major detours.

GOP lawmakers hailed the move by the BLM on oil shale.

"The United States holds more than 50 percent of the world's oil shale resources," said Rep. Don Young (R-AK.)  "America's current energy crisis highlights the importance of developing this new resource to reduce our alarming dependence on foreign nations."

Democrats found little to like about the draft regulations from the BLM.

"Before we move ahead with commercial leasing, we need to know what impact oil shale will have on Western water supplies, whether the technology will work on a commercial scale, where we would get the power for the projects, and what effect it would have on our land and wildlife," said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO.)

Just another example up here of how both sides look at the same issue and come up with completely different conclusions, no matter whether gas is at $2/gallon or $4/gallon.