Court lifts moratorium on federal coal sales in a setback for Dems and environmentalists
A U.S. appeals court has struck down a moratorium on coal leasing from federal lands
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday struck down a moratorium on coal leasing from federal lands in a move that could open the door to future coal sales from vast, publicly owned reserves of the fuel that's a major source of climate-changing greenhouse gases.
The ruling from a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a setback for environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers who worked for years to curtail the federal coal leasing program.
Yet it's uncertain how much demand there will be from the mining industry for new leases: Coal production from federal lands dropped sharply over the past decade after many electric utilities switched to less polluting sources of power generation such as natural gas and renewables.
More than 260 million tons of coal, or about half of the nation’s total, was mined by private companies from leases on federal land in 2022, the most recent figures available. That compares to more than 400 million tons of coal mined from federal lands in 2014.
