Good News On The Coal Front

Wondering if the courts can be used to hold up the not helpful Manchin revisions to the climate plan.

Federal court cites human health, climate costs in rejecting massive Wyoming, Montana coal mining plan

Over 43% of all coal produced in the U.S., and over 85% of all federal coal produced in the U.S., comes from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana

https://wildearthguardians.org/press-releases/federal-court-cites-human-...

GREAT FALLS, MONTANA— A federal judge late yesterday struck down two U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) resource management plans that failed to address the public health consequences of allowing massive amounts of coal, oil, and gas production from public lands and minerals in the Powder River Basin, including approximately 6 billion tons of low-grade, highly polluting coal over 20 years.

The Biden administration had defended the Trump-era resource management plans (RMPs) in the court proceedings. The court ordered the BLM to redo its analysis a second time.

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled that BLM failed to comply with a previous court order directing the agency to account for the environmental and human health impacts of burning publicly owned coal. The judge also held that BLM failed to consider alternatives that would limit or end new coal leasing in the Powder River Basin—the largest coal-producing region in the U.S.—in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

“The Bureau of Land Management is singularly focused on propping up the dying coal industry at the expense of its legal obligations to consider public health and the climate,” said Melissa Hornbein, a senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center. “That a federal judge ordered the Bureau to consider a no-leasing alternative and disclose to the public how many people will be sickened and die as a result of the combustion of federal coal is groundbreaking. The courts recognize the seriousness of the climate crisis and the impacts of fossil-fuel pollution. The BLM must now do likewise.”

The Buffalo and Miles City RMPs designate how much federal coal can be mined and burned within the planning areas. Almost all coal mined in the region is used for electricity production, making the region the largest single-source of carbon dioxide pollution in the nation. More than 43% of all coal produced in the U.S., and more than 85% of all federal coal produced in the U.S., comes from the Powder River Basin, which stretches more than 13 million acres across Montana and Wyoming.

“Put simply, [the National Environmental Policy Act] requires BLM to bookend its analysis by considering a no-future-leasing alternative and at least one alternative that further reduce[s] leasing by reducing the potential for expansion,” Judge Morris wrote. “Coal mining represents a potentially allowable use of public lands, but BLM is not required to lease public lands. The multiple use mandate does not bar BLM from considering a no-leasing alternative for public lands.”