By Derf Johnson
VICTORY – In a historic shift, indicative of the dramatic movement towards cleaner sources of energy, the Biden Administration recently announced that it would no longer lease federal coal in the Powder River Basin (PRB) of Montana and Wyoming. The announcement was made through the release of a federal environmental impact statement accompanying the Resource Management Plans (RMPs) for the field offices in Miles City, Montana, and Buffalo, Wyoming. The decision to wind down federal coal leasing in the PRB did not come without pressure. MEIC and our coalition partners doggedly pursued an end to federal leasing over three presidential administrations and several rounds of litigation. This decision really represents a sea change in America’s pursuit of clean energy production and an important milestone in decarbonizing our energy system.
Since the 1970s, the PRB has been a leading juggernaut of U.S. coal production. At its height in 2008, the PRB alone supplied close to 500 million tons annually (42%) of the 1.7 billion tons of coal being burned in boilers across the U.S. for electricity production. Since that time, coal production in the PRB has nearly halved, with 2024 estimates predicting even steeper declines. Nationwide, coal production totaled 535 million short tons (MMst) in 2020, and the Energy Information Administration is predicting that 2024 will see further cuts to approximately 500 million tons.
This is good news. The PRB is the largest single-source of carbon dioxide pollution in the nation, with almost all of the coal mined in the region used for electricity production. Further, more than 85% of all federal coal produced in the U.S. comes from the PRB, which stretches across more than 13 million acres.
How was this victory secured? In 2022, in response to a challenge from MEIC and our partners, a federal judge in Montana found that the RMPs failed to address the public health consequences of allowing massive amounts of coal, oil, and gas production from public lands and minerals in the PRB, including approximately six billion tons of low-grade, highly polluting coal over 20 years. In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris found that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) failed to comply with a previous court order directing the agency to account for the environmental and human health impacts of burning publicly owned coal. The judge also held that BLM failed to consider alternatives that would limit or end new coal leasing in the PRB in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act. The court ordered BLM to redo its environmental analysis, which is the product of BLM’s recent decision.
Undoubtedly, MEIC owes a debt of gratitude to our partners at Earthjustice, the Powder River Basin Resource Council, the Western Environmental Law Center, the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Northern Plains Resource Council, WildEarth Guardians, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils.
This article was published in the July 2024 issue of Down To Earth.
