The man standing in the way of oil shale development is Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., according to two of his fellow senators.

Salazar, said Sens. Wayne Allard and Orrin Hatch, Republicans of Colorado and Utah, respectively, has turned the regulation process on its head and stymied development.

“When the oil companies go to bid on their leases, they need to have some idea what their royalties might be and what their remediation requirements might be,” Allard told Fortune magazine in an interview with Hatch.

“The charges are false,” Salazar thundered Wednesday on a phone call to reporters in Colorado, when asked to respond to the interview in the June 6 edition of the magazine. “We need to face the reality that the American people have been living in a mythical world of energy. We cannot, in my mind, drill our way to energy independence.”

Salazar and U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, are standing in the way of oil shale development, Allard said.

“They both worked hard to stop development,” by insisting that rule-making stop, pending the completion of research and development on tracts leased by the Bureau of Land Management.

Salazar insisted he remained a supporter of oil shale development, pending the completion of those rules and regulations.

He called those who say that oil shale is the answer to the current peak in petroleum prices “false prophets spreading falsehoods that ought not be spread.”

The oil shale reserves of western Colorado, eastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming contain between 800 billion and 2 trillion barrels of petroleum, Allard noted.

Shell Exploration and Production Co.’s Unconventional Oil division is frustrated by the order in which the federal government has placed things, said Tracy Boyd, communications and sustainability manager.

“There’s a perception in the commercial and political ranks that we don’t need commercial leasing until we’ve shown results from research,” Boyd said.

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E-mail Gary Harmon at gharmon@gjds.com.