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

Denver—In remarks today to the U.S. The U.S.Department of the Interior, WildEarth Guardians intends to call on the agency to protect the climate and end the federal coal program.

“With our climate crisis upon us and the costs of carbon emissions mounting, the Interior Department needs to stop rubber stamping more coal mining,” said Jeremy Nichols, Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians. “The only way the American public truly gets a fair return is if our coal is kept in the ground.”

The remarks come as Interior is moving to reform the way it manages publicly owned coal in the United States.The agency is holding a series of public listening sessions, including one today in Denver, seeking input on how best to reform the federal coal program.

WildEarth Guardians has been leading the charge in the western U.S. to slow and stop the approval of more coal mining by the Interior Department. In May, a federal court ruled in favor of Guardians, finding that the Interior Department illegally approved of two coal mine expansions in Northwestern Colorado.

The court found Interior inappropriately excluded the public and ignored the impacts of coal burning. The mines now face potential shutdown if the Interior Department does not fix its mistakes. Guardians has similar litigation pending in other western states.

Earlier this month, WildEarth Guardians released a report detailing how the Interior Department can start to keep publicly owned coal in the ground to protect the climate. The report urges Interior to meet five key milestones that will ensure an end to the federal coal program in 10-25 years.

The report cites studies reporting that moving beyond coal is the single most important means of limiting carbon emissions. Earlier this year, scientists concluded that to meet modest climate targets, the United States must keep 95%of its recoverable coal reserves in the ground.

The Interior Department oversees nearly a trillion tons of publicly owned coal reserves in the lower 48 United States, the vast majority in the American West.These reserves are the source of the majority of all the coal mined and consumed in the U.S. In fiscal year 2014 alone, more than 40% of all coal produced in the nation came from publicly owned reserves managed by Interior.

Coal is mined for one reason, to be burned. And the burning of publicly owned coal produces massive amounts of carbon pollution. All told, reports indicate that11% of all greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. and 46% of all carbon dioxide emissions from coal combustion can be traced back to the mining of publicly owned coal. The link between the Interior Department’s coal program and carbon emissions has been described as a massive “blind spot” of the Obama Administration.

Still,the Interior Department continues to lease and condone the mining of more publicly owned coal. Since 2009, the agency has auctioned off more than 2.2 billion tons of coal, including the sale of 40 million tons in June of this year.

Interior’s coal decisions threaten to set back the national efforts to reduce carbon,including the Obama Administration’s signature climate initiative, the Clean Power Plan, which was announced earlier this month.