Western Coal Approvals Setting Back Climate Progress

Guardians Files Suit to Overturn Mining Decisions in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming

Denver—Citing mounting risks to the climate and massive carbon emissions, WildEarth Guardians late yesterday filed suit to overturn coal mining approvals by the U.S. Department of the Interior in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

“Our climate simply can’t afford more mining and the inevitable coal burning and flood of carbon pollution,” said Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians’ Climate and Energy Program Director.  “It’s time for the Interior Department to pull its head out of the sand and come clean with the American public that it can’t keep rubberstamping the coal industry’s demands.”

The suit challenges four approvals that allowed companies to expand and mine more publicly owned coal—two in Wyoming, one in Colorado, and one in New Mexico—over the failure of Interior Department to provide any public notice of its decisions and to account for the climate impacts of approving expanded coal mining.

The suit follows a successful WildEarth Guardians lawsuit targeting coal mining in Colorado.  In a May 2015 ruling, a federal judge held the Interior Department violated the law by approving coal mining with no public notice and with no consideration of coal burning impacts.  Guardians has similar lawsuits pending in Montana and New Mexico.  And, last Friday, Guardians filed suit to overturn a coal lease recently approved by the Interior Department in Utah.

Sally Jewell, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, has raised questions over whether the mining of publicly owned coal is consistent with U.S. climate objectives.  More than 40% of all coal produced in the nation is publicly owned.  When burned, this coal releases more than 10% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.  Sally Jewell has called for the federal coal program to be “modernized.” In spite of this, the Interior Department continues to sign off on more minng.

“It’s time to keep our coal in the ground, not open the door for more mining and more carbon,” said Nichols.  “Modernizing the federal coal program means getting it in line with the need to combat climate change.”

Between November 2013 and March of 2015, the Interior Department approved expanded mining at the El Segundo mine in northwestern New Mexico, the Bowie No. 2 mine in western Colorado, the Antelope mine in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and the nearby Black Thunder mine.

The El Segundo mine is owned by Peabody and fuels power plants in eastern Arizona.  The Bowie No. 2 mine is owned by Bowie Resources, a company that actively exports coal overseas through ports in the Bay Area of California.  The Antelope mine is owned by Cloud Peak Energy, which also exports coal through ports in the northwestern U.S. and fuels dozens of power plants in the U.S.  The Black Thunder mine, the second largest in the U.S., is owned by Arch Coal and fuels several dozen power plants in the nation.

All told Interior’s approvals opened the door for more than 530 million tons of coal mining.  When burned, this coal stands to release nearly a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, as much as is released by 208 million cars every year (according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator).

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.


 

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