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Guardians Petitions U.S. Coal Mining Agency to Stop Sidestepping Environmental Reviews
“The public has effectively been shut out of federal coal mining decisions, giving industry free rein to foul our air and water and fuel global warming,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program Director. “Today, we’re calling for an end to the rubberstamping of more coal mining at the expense of the public.”
The petition, filed with the Office of Surface Mining, an Interior Department agency, targets the review and approval of Mining Plans, which authorize the mining of federal coal. The American public owns federal coal.
Federal coal underlies 570 million acres in the United States, primarily in the west, and comprises more than 40% of all coal production in the nation. Before a coal company can mine federal coal, the Office of Surface Mining, an Interior Department agency, has to approve a Mining Plan.
The petition filed today calls on the Office of Surface Mining to be more transparent with the public, to provide opportunities for public comment on coal mining decisions, to fully take into account environmental impacts of coal mining, and to ensure that mining decisions are not haphazardly approved based on outdated information.
A Mining Plan can only be approved if the mining will comply with federal environmental laws. Not only that, but a Plan can only be approved if the environmental impacts have been fully analyzed and the public has been given notice and an opportunity to provide comments, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
Unfortunately, the Office of Surface Mining routinely signs off on new Mining Plans with no public notice or opportunity to comment and limited review of environmental impacts. In most case, the agency relies on environmental analyses prepared by other agencies that have no authority over mining. In some cases, the environmental analyses can be five years old or older.
In 2013, the Western Regional Office of the Office of Surface Mining approved six Mining Plans in the States of Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming, authorizing more than 13,000 acres of new mining and the extraction of more than 700 million tons of new coal. No public notice was given prior to their decisions and virtually no consideration of the impacts of mining occurred.
Coal is mined for one reason: to be burned. The Office of Surface Mining’s decisions not only authorize vast amounts of mining, but also indirectly lead to large amounts of coal burning, the largest source of carbon pollution.
“The Office of Surface Mining is blindly signing off on more coal mining, refusing to give any consideration to public concerns or the environmental costs, even though this is our coal” said Nichols. “This reckless practice not only puts our air, water, land, and wildlife at risk, it endangers our climate with more carbon and more uncertainty.”
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1977 to keep the impacts of surface coal mining in check, provides that citizens can petition the Office of Surface Mining to adopt rules governing coal mining nationwide. Guardians’ petition was filed pursuant to this law.
The petition also comes as reports this week found the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, another agency in the Interior Department, which is charged with leasing federal coal, has been illegally leasing federal coal at below fair market value.
“The Interior Department’s practice of appeasing coal companies has to stop,” said Nichols. “It’s time for wholesale reform, both within the Office of Surface Mining and the Bureau of Land Management.”
Under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, the Office of Surface Mining has 90 days to respond to Guardians’ petition.