In a historic move, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has proposed ending federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin. The region, which extends from northeast Wyoming to southern Montana, is the nation’s largest coal supplier, and for 50 years a pillar of Wyoming’s economy.
The federal agency on Thursday issued its final supplemental environmental impact statement and proposed amendment to its Buffalo Field Office land use plan, selecting a “no future coal leasing alternative.” Mining companies can still develop their existing federal coal leases, which would allow for the region’s current rate of production to continue through 2041, according to the agency’s estimates.
The BLM was required by court order to rework its land use plan updates for the Buffalo, Wyoming and Miles City, Montana field offices after local conservation groups successfully argued it had not fully considered environmental, climate and human health impacts resulting from further coal leasing in the region. The agency’s action this week opens a 30-day “protest” period, and a final order is due later this year.
To submit a written protest, visit the BLM’s Filing a Plan Protest page for instructions. Protests must be submitted by June 17.
Though the Powder River Basin coal industry has been in decline since 2008, the BLM’s decision — even if it is defeated by legal challenges — sends a strong signal to the industry, as well as Wyoming and Montana leaders, that mining in the region will come to an end, said Shannon Anderson, attorney for the Sheridan-based landowner advocacy group Powder River Basin Resource Council.
“This recognizes the reality of where things are headed and provides us certainty,” Anderson told WyoFile. “It also provides the opportunity to responsibly close these mines to ensure reclamation gets done.”
Wyoming’s congressional delegates blasted the decision.
“This will kill jobs and could cost Wyoming hundreds of millions of dollars used to pay for public schools, roads, and other essential services in our communities,” Sen. John Barrasso, a Republican and vocal industry advocate, said in a statement. “Cutting off access to our strongest resources surrenders America’s greatest economic advantages — to continue producing affordable, abundant, and reliable American energy.”
Retired Powder River Basin coal miner Lynne Huskinson, also a member of the Powder River Basin Resource Council and Western Organization of Resource Councils that challenged the BLM, applauded the agency’s decision.
“As someone who lives near some of the largest coal mines in the nation, I’m thankful for the leadership from the BLM in finally addressing the long-standing negative impacts that federal coal leasing has had on the Powder River Basin,” Huskinson said in a statement. “For decades, mining has affected public health, our local land, air, and water, and the global climate. We look forward to BLM working with state and local partners to ensure a just economic transition for the Powder River Basin as we move toward a clean energy future.”
Wyoming coal production — primarily in the Powder River Basin — recently fell 20% with forecasts for lower-than-average demand for the rest of the year.
Despite declining demand, Wyoming Mining Association Executive Director Travis Deti believes cutting off coal leases will bring dire consequences. “In a time of deteriorating grid reliability and soaring electricity demand, make no mistake about it — the lights are going out,” Deti said in a prepared statement.
Gordon promises to sue
The BLM’s coal leasing decision is the latest in a series of federal rules aimed at drastically reducing greenhouse gas and other pollutants from fossil fuels, earning accolades from environmental groups and ire from states dependent on coal, oil and natural gas production.
The actions hit particularly hard in Wyoming where the BLM manages 18 million surface acres and about 43 million acres of subsurface minerals, including the vast majority of coal in the Powder River Basin.
- The agency recently released a draft management plan for sage grouse habitat that could further restrict oil and gas development.
- The BLM in March announced its “final Methane Waste Rule” requiring oil and gas producers to curb greenhouse gas emissions from operations on federal and tribal lands — designations that describe 70% of Wyoming’s mineral acreage.
- The agency is finalizing another rule to put conservation on par with the “multiple-use” doctrine guiding federal lands — another threat to Wyoming’s oil and gas industry, according to opponents.
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in April issued four “final” rules aimed at drastically cutting coal pollution, including a mandate that existing coal-fired power plants cut or capture 90% of their planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions by 2032 or convert to natural gas or close altogether.
The culmination of Biden administration actions, according to Gov. Mark Gordon, appears to be a deliberate attack on fossil fuel jobs and the economies of energy-producing states.
“With this latest barrage in President Joe Biden’s ongoing attack on Wyoming’s coal country and all who depend upon it, he has demonstrated his lack of regard for the environment, for working people, and for reliable, dispatchable energy,” Gordon said in a statement. “This decision [to end coal leasing], compounded by the recent EPA rules, ensures President Biden’s legacy will be about blackouts and energy poverty for Wyoming’s citizens and beyond.”
Gordon promised to “fully utilize the opportunities available to kill or modify this Record of Decision before it is signed and final.”
Praise for federal environmental actions
Environmental groups say the bold federal actions to curb planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions are long overdue.
“The only way to address the climate crisis is to transition to a renewable energy economy, and America’s public lands are at the center of that transition,” Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss said in a statement. “We’re thankful to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning, and all of the hard-working scientists and land managers who prepared these [Powder River Basin coal leasing] management plans.”
Conservation groups have also noted that the pollution reduction rules are accompanied by unprecedented spending via the Inflation Reduction and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs acts, injecting billions of dollars into communities throughout the nation, including funds that are specifically targeted to help energy communities transition away from fossil fuels.
Though many Wyoming communities are eager to take advantage of the federal dollars, they’ve struggled to muster the professional resources necessary to compete for them, while Gordon has rejected some of the federal programs.
Though coal has long powered the nation, markets are already adapting to cleaner forms of energy that will allow the nation to move beyond the greenhouse gas-emitting fuel, according to the Western Organization of Resource Councils’ Board Chair Paula Antoine.
“BLM’s announcement recognizes that coal’s era is ending,” Antoine said in a statement, “and it’s time to focus on supporting our communities through the transition away from coal, investing in workers, and moving to heal our lands, waters and climate as we enter a bright clean energy future.”
The lead time is long. We’ll see Powder River Basin coal for 17 years or more driven by demand and coal prices.
Coal demand is down and WY will twist in the wind if it does not heed the direction….away from fossil fuels
Well I guess nuclear reactors are about the only thing left for electrical generation. The Feds management programs are failing Americans. However, there may not be anything left to manage after the Muslim terrorists attack us. Trump is our only savior.
Your forgetting wind and solar energy plus Bill Gates hydrogen power plan to be built in Kemmerer. In 1974 as grad student at UW we had Gary Glass, State Geologist come to the class to talk about coal mines being built in Gillette. We went on a field trip and spent the day at the Jim Bridger power plant. He advised that Wyoming has 50 year supply of coal in Campell County. He got the timeline right but for the wrong reasons. After I got my degree I took a job up in Gillette in social services as it was really lacking up there. In Vermont now and we are 100% renewable. Solar, wind, hydropower and nuclear. While Wyoming lacks hydropower it certainly has the wind and solar resources and has moved in that direction. Keeping the belief that Wyoming needs coal, is moot as the mines are shutting down due to lack of demand, is a long term loser.
Phil. Nuclear power plant replacement of coal is 25-30 years away. Plus guess who make the fuel rods for these plants? Now if you guess RUSSIA, you win the grand boobie prize of the day. And how is our relationship with Russia these days? Oh all the small details in plan.
Peak employment in American coal mines occurred over a century ago, over 800,000 miners and support workers in 1923 when the USA had 1/3rd the present population . It had mostly declined ever since. The WWII industrial rampup brought back a temporary surge in coal jobs, but the coal economy crashed in the later 1950’s when the railroads switched over to diesel-electric locomotives. The building of the big coal-fired power plants in the 70’s could not offset the losses to the US steel mills to overseas suppliers. Today there are only 36,000 coal miners and support working in the entire country, roughly 5,000 in Wyoming including the railroads. Wyoming coal is producing a fraction of the nation’s electrical output today compared to its peak 15 years ago.
The Halcyon days for Wyoming hydrocarbon are mostly over. The real tragedy is anyone with both eyes open and a sense of history could see this coming 20 years ago. Wyoming leadership did little to nothing to prepare for it. No Plan B. Or C. The coal decline is real , from external forces and markets not of our choosing. Wyoming CHOSE to be in denial of it, however.
The whining by mining serves only to add a sour chord to the relentless windsong of change that blow across the Wyoming sagebrush steppes.
This article mentions nothing about the 3 million or so acres already leased, in Wyoming, to the fossil fuel industry. Land that is being utilized except to sell and speculate on, but not mine or drill. It also does not mention that most of the easy to reach mineral deposits have already been accessed and largely what is left is more difficult to attain. It also does not mention the millions in Federal cost of getting land ready to lease, only to have it set, untouched, except for speculation. Best guess is if the fossil fuel industry would use the land already available to them the Feds. Would release more.
I have heard that the fossil fuel industry in Wyoming currently has permits for about 3 million acres that is not being mined or drilled. Is this true? Also much of the current reserves are not nearly as easy to extract as has been historically been the case. Does this issue have more to do with the buying and selling of leases than mining and drilling?
Mark Gordon is the one who “continually shows a lack of regard for working people,”. I have asked him repeatedly to a) address minimum wage issues, particularly for tipped workers; b) address the excessively high death-on-the-job rate in Wyoming; c) develop transition planning for workers in the fossile fuel industry so when that industry does change, our working families are not left without employment options; d) make workers a priority in economic development, not business. I have tried to repeal sales and use tax exemptions for companies that don’t hire Wyoming workers; I have tried to pass legislation to hold railroads accountable for safety standards, and we have even tried enforcing vehicle registration laws so out of state companies have to pay their fair share for reaping Wyoming’s wealth. President Biden has done more for workers in Wyoming that Gordon can even imagine. So please Governor, file your silly lawsuits if you must, but stop claiming workers as your big concern when it’s convenient. They know you care little about their situation – if you did, you would change it!
Take it from me, coal is just a filthy fuel to mine, clean, transport, deliver, unload, pile-up, push around, grind-up, and burn. THEN, you must dispose of the real estate that didn’t burn (ash). Nat gas is the current economic fuel.
Then there are generating units that use ZERO fuel, consume almost ZERO water, produce almost ZERO operational waste, and require much fewer “heads per MWh” produced. It is hard for any fossil fueled power plant to compete with those.
The era of the gigawatt scale stand-alone coal power plant is over. The age of coal power generation integrated with wastewater treatment and biomass production is just dawning. Can we please end the knee-jerk association between coal and smokestacks?
It’s time to move forward and embrace a brighter new future! Thanks to the many visionary people who worked hard to achieve this important goal.
China is permitting and building about two new coal fired power plants per week while we are eliminating coal fired power plants!!!! Seems to me the United States is rushing into carbon dioxide emission reduction in good faith whilst our adversaries are the ones contributing the most carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. As a result, some areas of the US are starting to see insufficient electricity availability and decreased reliability from solar energy which requires extremely large and expensive storage facilities. Areas of the US with large data processing centers and bit mining complexes are pushing supply and demand to the limit. I did a quick internet search and found that solar energy development will require almost 700,000 acres of solar farms and that doesn’t include transmission lines and storage facilities – that’s an incredible acreage taken out of ag production.
Cause and effect. Our explosive population growth directly impacts the amount of energy we consume in the US but no one discusses the effect on the environment of flooding the country with immigrants. Housing alone requires roughly 500,000 acres of new subdivisions, apartments, concret, asphalt, schools and infrastructure per year!!!! How much carbon dioxide emission results from our population growth?? Its a cause and effect relationship – switching predominately to green energy doesn’t solve this carbon emission concern. The Biden administration is rushing into green energy too fast while ignoring our exploding population growth and China’s non-compliance with carbon dioxide emission reduction goals. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot and China will benefit as usual.
Dr. Michael Walker, mcwalker_98@yahoo.com
The reason coal production is falling in the US is politics, not economics. China and India are certainly not slowing down, China has massively ramped up. The idea that by destroying the energy sector we will make any difference in terms of the climate is sheer folly. If the US was completely Carbon Neutral, it wouldn’t make any difference at all, aside from massive economic problems here, while China is building the equivalent of 2 new plants a week. China alone already accounts for the majority of Co2 emissions (BTW, Co2 is not a “pollutant” if the amount of Co2 in the atmosphere dropped 1.5% all life on Earth would die.
This is the triumph of Left Ideology over rationality. BTW, if we have a 100% electric vehicle fleet, but no electricity, I guess we will be riding horses in a few years.
Nothing beats supply and demand……… as the main sauce, pun intended, for our economy. Instead of suing the Feds, the Gov should have been planning for this. The nuclear facility in Kemmerer is a gift. Will it happen. If it does there will be the new Wyoming boom town. I worked in Gillette in the mid 70’s when the coal boom was just starting.
Actually something does beat supply and demand — federal regulations.
It is time for Wyoming to literally step out of the dinosaur age and address the reality of the devastating impacts of fossil fuels on our climate and the future of our planet. Unfortunately our leaders are stuck in the past and addicted to the damaging drug: fossil fuels.
What impacts? A powerful tax base? Money for schools? Good paying jobs? SMH
Coal is over. Nuclear is back. Wyoming will thrive, especially if we let the Washington, Oregon and California folks know that we’re not going to sacrifice our open spaces for their wind and solar obsessions.
The decision has already been made to sacrifice Wyoming’s open spaces for green energy projects – witness the recently announced 5,400 acre solar farm just south of Cheyenne and the recent completion of another high voltage power line from southern Carbon County towards the Las Vegas and LA markets. The entire I-80 corridor will continue to be hammered by green energy development – ironically, the State’s rush into green energy is largely a result of the decline in coal mining and the anticipated decline in oil/gas which hasn’t materialized as expected. Wyoming is in the energy exporting business marketing to the population centers and that isn’t about to change. The reason the green energy projects are coming to Wyoming centers around us being business friendly with fewer regulations and a favorable tax structured. The high desert will be sacrificed in order to replace coal mining.
Nuclear power plants take several years to construct and to put into operation, and ONE (still just proposed) plant as such will not do much for Wyoming’s economy. Nor will the planned influx of federal funds into affected communities do more that put more individuals on the dole, since money alone does not create jobs. Since access to affordable and reliable electricity is a necessity, and increasingly so, an “all of the above” approach to its generation must also exist.
Noticed one retired and one former coal miner were each interviewed but no miners currently working a mine. Receiving some of the highest salaries and best benefits seen in Wyoming, most miners are satisfied with and grateful for their jobs. If Wyoming was like the majority of the states, being made up of mostly privately owned land, there would not be any high-handed government agencies dictating the will of Washington DC upon its people and businesses.
Thankfully we are almost half public land.
So you are glad Biden and DC are governing the state, and not the state itself? SMH
Everyone will be up-in-arms over this I imagine, even though a new land use plan was court ordered. Some here of course will say Biden did it ,which just reflects how little minds work and how limited their knowledge of their own government, economics, and regulatory structure works. I so wonder why the economic realities of coal production are not obvious. Yes .. we are going to be using coal for a while, but more economical natural gas is stealing the power production market as well as clean technologies and soon nuclear. Pushing coal just kicks the can down the road and stifles new innovation. I was raised in what used to be coal country. Yep… we did the same thing in W. VA and in PA, licked the can down the road, and look what that got us. Everyone worked in the coal industry and refused progress and change. Those economies are still trying to recover.
It had a good run from October of 1971 when I started mining scoria for the for the first mine south of Gillette
Remember in NOVEMBER!!
Wyomingites already “remembered”– why the majority voted for Ttump.