Coal leasing is temporarily banned again on public lands after a Friday ruling by an Obama judge.
Almost half the nation’s annual coal production is mined by private companies from leases on federal land, mainly in Western states, including Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado, Fox News reports. The hard-left environmentalists also want to quickly ditch the remaining existing leases. As a result, we would have no coal.
In the US, electricity relies on coal.
Jenny Harbine, an attorney at Earthjustice who represented the environmental groups, said, “While this ruling reinstates the moratorium on new coal leasing on public lands, the Biden administration must go further by urgently phasing out the existing coal leases that are destroying our planet.”
It’s not destroying our planet, but these people are believers and way too powerful.
On Friday, federal Judge Brian Morris of the US District Court in Montana reinstated an Obama-era moratorium. As a result, coal leasing is temporarily banned on public lands.
The ruling reinstates a 2016 order by then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell banning coal leasing on federal lands pending further environmental review because of coal’s contribution to climate change. That order was scrapped in 2017 by Ryan Zinke, the Trump administration’s first Interior secretary.
Morris is an Obama judge.
Federal land leased for coal mining has declined steadily since 1990, from about 730,000 acres under lease to 435,535 acres in 2020. According to Bureau of Land Management data, this was mostly in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Montana. The most recent land bureau coal lease sale was scheduled for January 2020 in North Dakota.
The National Mining Association intervened in the case and said it would appeal.
“This is a deeply disappointing decision with energy-driven inflation, energy affordability, and energy security top concerns for Americans,” Rich Nolan, NMA president and CEO, said in a statement. “The reimposition of this moratorium couldn’t come at a worse time.”
Environmental groups and tribes hailed the ruling.
“While this ruling reinstates the moratorium on new coal leasing on public lands, the Biden administration must go further by urgently phasing out the existing coal leases that are destroying our planet. There is no room to continue producing coal in a climate emergency,” Jenny Harbine, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Northern Rockies office, said in a statement.
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Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, sued the Trump administration in 2017. They challenged Zinke’s revocation of Jewell’s order establishing the moratorium. The case was consolidated with an identical suit filed by California, Washington State, New York, and New Mexico.
Environmental extremists are ruining the country. There is nothing to take the place of fossil fuels. Radicals are taking a 50-year plan to get off fossil fuels and stuffing it into seven years. They are destroying our economy and the entire western world. These leftists are one-issue people with radical views.
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