A giant truck transports coal from a mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin
Stephanie Joyce/Wyoming Public Media
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Stephanie Joyce/Wyoming Public Media
A giant truck transports coal from a mine in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin
Stephanie Joyce/Wyoming Public Media
In a pair of controversial environmental decisions, the Biden administration is moving to end all new coal leases in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana, the nation’s largest coal-producing regions.
The federal Bureau of Land Management announced the decision Thursday in response to a lawsuit from environmental groups and is expected to face protests from the industry and coal-producing states including Wyoming. In the agency’s final environmental study, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Buffalo, Wyoming field office ruled that new coal leases will have significant impacts on human health and climate because power plants burn coal.
Environmentalists hailed the decision as a victory, estimating it would leave 6 billion tons of “highly polluting coal in the ground”.
“The Bureau of Land Management has released a common-sense plan that reflects the realities of today’s coal market,” Mark Fix of the Montana Northern Plains Resource Council said in a statement.
The new rules won’t shut down the region’s coal industry, as companies can still develop federal leases that have already been issued. But at this time Wyoming’s coal industry has been struggling to find new markets as many West Coast cities have banned coal power generation.
Wyoming is the nation’s largest coal producer, accounting for 41% of the nation’s total supply. West Virginia ranks second at 14%.
Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso accused the Biden administration of “waging war on Wyoming’s coal communities and families” in a statement.
“This will kill jobs and could cost Wyoming hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for public schools, roads and other essential services,” he said.
Thursday’s decision follows a court ruling earlier this year that overturned a broad Obama-era ban on new coal leasing.
Meanwhile, in Wyoming, groups have thirty days to file formal protests against the recent BLM Powder River Basin decision.
