Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Coalition Calls on Obama Administration to Move Quickly on Coal Reform

Protecting Climate, Helping Communities Transition From Fossil Fuels Needs to be Paramount
Contact: Jeremy Nichols (303) 437-7663 jnichols@wildearthguardians.org

Denver—A broadcoalition of environmental advocacy groups today called on the ObamaAdministration to protect the climate, help communities, and move quickly onreforms that keep publicly owned coal in the ground in the U.S.

“We are writing to urge the Department of the Interior tomove forward as expeditiously and effectively as possible with its reform andenvironmental review efforts,” said the coalition. “As the agency does so, we call on you toensure this process is guided by a simple, yet critical principle: that toeffectively protect our climate and help our nation transition to clean energy,we have to start keeping coal in the ground.”

In January of this year, the U.S. Department of the Interiorannounced a moratoriumon leasing new publicly owned coal and the initiation of an updatedenvironmental review of the entire federal coal program.

The move came in response to mounting pressure andcontroversy over the climate and economic impacts of mining more coal.

In a letter to Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, overa dozen local, regional, and national organizations urged the InteriorDepartment to adopt additional interim reforms, to get moving on itsenvironmental review, and to start involving the public in the process.

The group also called on the Secretary, “ to explicitlyacknowledge that the paramount goal of long-term reform is to chart an orderlyand effective path toward ending the federal coal program.”

Among the interim reforms called for: greater transparency;a pause on reducing royalties that industry pays for coal production; limits oncoal mine methane releases; an end to letting coal companies avoid paying mineclean up guarantees; accounting for carbon costs in future leasing and mining;and securing economic support for communities to transition from coal.

In her January 2016 announcement, Secretary Jewell already signaledher support for anumber of additional interim reforms. Today’s letter urges the Secretary to follow through with hercommitments.

“We urge you to undertake additional near-term reforms toensure the integrity of long-term federal coal reform efforts and to demonstrateto the American public the Administration’s commitment to success,” said theletter. “These near-term reforms mustinclude a commitment to prioritize providing support and assistance to helpcommunities that are currently heavily reliant upon the federal coal programtransition to more sustainable and prosperous economies.”

The Interior’s management of publicly owned coal has saddledthe world with tremendous climate costs and shortchanged American taxpayersthrough loopholes and breaks to the coal industry. Coal leases have recently sold for less than$1.00 per ton and companies have avoided paying billions in mine reclamationguarantees.

By subsidizing coal development, the Interior Department hasopened the door for a climate disaster. 40%of all coal produced in the U.S. comes from publicly owned leases, primarily inthe western U.S. All told, coal producedfrom these leases is responsible for 11% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Although the Secretary’s moratorium on new leasing promisesto keep 1.8 billion tons of coal in the ground and prevent the release of morethan 3.4 billion metric tons of carbon (more than half of all yearly U.S.greenhouse gas emissions), the moratorium still allows hundreds of millions oftons of coal to be mined.

The group today urged Sally Jewell to commit tocompleting its environmental review and adopting new reforms within threeyears, and to invite broad public involvement in the process. The group urged the Secretary to hold anumber of public hearings, to kick off a formal comment period, to create awebsite dedicated to informing and inviting the public to weigh in, and to ensurefull engagement and consultation of tribal interests.