[MCN] Lawsuit Renews Challenge to Trump Administration’s Order to Give Away Public Lands to Coal Industry

[Matthew Koehler]

For release: July 20, 2020

*Lawsuit Renews Challenge to Trump Administration’s Order to Give Away
Public Lands to Coal Industry*



*Administration Throws Climate, Clean Air and Water, Communities Under Bus
for Coal Companies*For more information:  Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth
Guardians, (303) 437-7663, jnichols at wildearthguardians.org

Liz Trotter, Earthjustice, (305) 332-5395, etrotter at earthjustice.org

Great Falls, MT – A coalition including states, conservation organizations,
and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe today launched a new legal challenge
<https://pdf.wildearthguardians.org/support_docs/20-07-20%20Supplemental%20Complaint_Exh%201.pdf>against
the Trump administration’s decision to open millions of acres of public
lands for new coal leasing and mining. That 2017 decision ended an
Obama-era leasing moratorium that had protected public lands from new coal
strip mines, and the water, air, and climate pollution such mines cause.

“The Trump administration is blatantly selling out the American public in a
corrupt attempt to appease the dying coal industry,” said Jeremy Nichols,
Climate and Energy Program Director for WildEarth Guardians.  “This latest
legal effort is about enforcing the fact that the public interest comes
first, not the demands of climate denying coal executives.”

A U.S. District Court in Great Falls, Montana, ruled in April 2019
<https://pdf.wildearthguardians.org/support_docs/19-04-19%20Doc.%20141%20ORDER.pdf>
that
the administration’s decision to end the moratorium broke the law because
the administration failed to evaluate the environmental harm from its
decision.

However, earlier this year, the Trump administration attempted to remedy
that violation by releasing a widely-criticized
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-tribe/montana-tribe-rips-trump-administration-over-federal-coal-leasing-idUSKCN1SZ2WQ>
environmental
assessment. The assessment looked at only four coal leases that the Bureau
of Land Management had already issued, and concluded the leases did not
cause any significant harm to the environment. The assessment did not
consider Bureau’s other coal-leasing activities over the 570-million acre
federal mineral estate, which contains approximately 255 billion tons of
mineable coal.

The complaint filed in the Great Falls court today challenges the
administration’s findings that the federal coal-leasing program does not
cause significant environmental harm, and asks the court to reinstate the
moratorium on new coal leasing. Earthjustice filed the complaint on behalf
of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Citizens for Clean Energy, Montana
Environmental Information Center, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra
Club, WildEarth Guardians, and Defenders of Wildlife.

The states of California, Washington, New Mexico, and New York took similar
action
<https://earthjustice.org/documents/legal-document/state-plaintiffs-complaint-7-20-20>
on
Monday.

“While people across the globe are literally fighting for their lives
against persistent threats to their air quality, water supplies, and
sustainable climate, the Trump administration is propping up a dying
industry that still inflicts long-lasting harm on communities and the
health of our planet,” said Jenny Harbine, Earthjustice attorney. “We’re
asking the court to restore critical protections and hold this
administration accountable to science and the law.”

 BACKGROUND:

The Trump administration’s actions are in stark contrast with the Obama
administration, which had ordered the moratorium on new coal-leasing to
allow time to reform the federal program to protect the climate and
American taxpayers. In just the first stage of that review, completed this
January, the Interior Department found that coal mining fouls the air,
pollutes streams and destroys wildlife habitat on public land. Past
estimates found that one-tenth of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
<http://www.eenews.net/assets/2017/01/11/document_gw_02.pdf>*, the
pollution driving climate change,* come from federal coal.

In addition to studying these impacts, the Interior Department previously
committed to evaluate options for improving returns to taxpayers before
resuming leasing. Internal Interior Department
<http://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2013/06/doi-inspector-general-report-confirms-unfair-federal-coal-leasing-practices-0>
and
independent Government Accountability Office
<https://thinkprogress.org/federal-leasing-program-a-giveaway-to-big-coal-government-watchdog-finds-a33d1e092389#.w7ont41mn>
audits
have recently concluded that the current leasing system shortchanges
taxpayers while subsidizing coal mining. The Trump administration’s
decision to resume federal coal leasing will lock in these subsidies—in
addition to harmful environmental impacts—before they are fully studied.

In addition to climate and economic impacts, the mining and burning of coal
from public lands imposes heavy air-quality and public-health costs through
emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and
mercury. Scientists have called
<https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/public_lands/energy/dirty_energy_development/coal/pdfs/16_7_26_Scientist_sign-on_letter_Coal_PEIS.pdf>
on
the United States to stop new coal leasing to help prevent the most
catastrophic impacts of climate change.

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