Coal news and updates

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today laid out plans for a long-overdue overhaul of the broken federal coal program, including steps to address climate change and fix a process that has short-changed taxpayers more than $30 billion over the last three decades.

 

Currently, 40 percent of coal burned in the US comes from federal lands, accounting for 10 percent of US carbon pollution. Importantly, the report lays out one scenario for no new coal leasing of federal coal..

 

Such a move would mean aligning the use of America's public lands with our obligation to protect future generations from the dangers of climate change. Doing so is what leadership is all about, at home and abroad-- as we transition away from dirty fossil fuels of the past to a clean energy 21st century.

 

President-Elect Trump has said he plans to stop efforts modernize the coal program. That’s not leadership, and it’s not realistic. The report and many market analysts have repeatedly pointed out that the coal industry is in structural decline.

 

What’s more, the Department of Interior’s (DOI) own Inspector General along with the Government Accountability Office found the program—which hasn’t been updated or audited in 30 years--to be deeply flawed.

 

The report notes that “while energy markets, communities, environmental conditions and national priorities have undergone major changes in recent decades, the BLM’s (Bureau of Land Management) management of the federal coal program has stayed relatively static.”

 

There have been previous attempts to fix the program, and they’ve been bipartisan, the current pause on substantial new leasing (until an overhaul) is not the first. Moratorium’s have been placed on the federal coal leasing program twice before, by President’s Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, to address essentially the same problems..

 

Independent audits have shown the program has short-changed the taxpayers at least $30 billion over the last three decades by selling coal to companies below the required “fair market value.” For example, experts calculated that American taxpayers lost out on over $1.2 billion from the largest coal lease sale in BLM history in 2012. Revenues from lease sales are split 50-50 with states.

SOurce: NRDC