Saturday, July 10, 2010
North Antelope Rochelle Coal Mine, Wyoming (photo-NASA)
Tired of the cheap deal enjoyed by mining companies, environmentalists are suing the Department of the Interior over the federal designation of the nation’s largest coal-producing region.
WildEarth Guardians claims that the Powder River Basin, a 24,000 square mile area encompassing parts of Wyoming and Montana, has produced 42% of the nation’s coal, but has not yielded an acceptable amount of revenue to the U.S. Treasury. That’s because the Bureau of Land Management, since the George H. W. Bush administration, has not classified Powder River as a “coal production region.” This failure has resulted in non-competitive leasing for coal mining operations.
The area was designated a coal production region in 1979, but the Bush administration changed the certification in 1990. Since that time, only three of 24 leases have had competitive bidding. President Barack Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, has refused to change the designation.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Uncle Sam Bends Over for Big Coal (by Sonia Angelica Diehn, Courthouse News Service)
WildEarth Guardians v. Ken Salazar et al. (U.S. District Court, District of Columbia) (pdf)
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