Billings, Mont. (AP) – Federal officials rejected a mining company’s offer to buy 1.3 million tons of coal under a national forest in Utah, marking the third proposed bid. Selling coal from public lands In the west, it will fall during this month.
the Failed sales It represents a setback under President Donald Trump Pay to revive The coal mining industry has been in decline for nearly two decades.
The Interior Department rejected the only coal offer it received on a proposed 120-acre (49-hectare) lease in the Manti La Sal National Forest near the Skyline mine in central Utah because it did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act, agency spokeswoman Alice Sharp said Thursday.
The leasing law requires companies to pay fair market value for coal extracted from public lands. Sharp refused to disclose the amount that was offered. The sale was requested by a subsidiary of Utah mining company Wolverine Fuels LLC, which operates the Skyline Mine and other coal mines in central Utah.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said two weeks ago that the government would open up 13 million acres of federal land to coal mining. But it’s unclear who will want this fuel as utilities shift to cheap natural gas and renewable energy sources such as Wind and solar energy To generate electricity.
Emissions from burning coal are the main driver of global warming Climate change This raises sea levels and makes weather more extreme.
On October 6, a sale of coal from public lands in Montana, which would have been the largest of its kind by the government in more than a decade, attracted a single bid of $186,000, or about $186,000. Ten pence per ton of coal, and was later rejected. This lease holds 167 million tons of coal in southeastern Montana near Navajo Transition Energy’s Spring Creek Mine.
Two days later, the Interior Department postponed a larger sale — 440 million tons next to the Navajo Nation’s Antelope Mine in Wyoming.
Sharpe repeated the Republican Trump administration’s assertion that the policies of former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama were responsible for the failure of sales, saying that Democrats had tried to “dismantle domestic production and undermine investor confidence in the industry.”
Both Democrats tried to limit coal sales from public lands, but Trump reversed those policies.
Three other coal lease sales from public lands were successful under Trump. The largest, in Alabama, included 54 million tons of steel-making coal that was sold last month for $46 million, or about 87 cents per ton. Two recent sales in North Dakota of leases containing 30 million tons of coal brought in a total of $186,000, or less than a penny per ton.
“As demand for reliable, dispatchable energy grows, coal remains a critical component in ensuring affordable and reliable energy for the American people,” Sharp said in a statement.
But industry analysts and economists say the biggest driver of coal’s decline is market forces that make other fuels more economical. Many power plants served by large mines on public lands in the West are nearing retirement.
Environmentalists have fought for years against the expansion of the Skyline mine in Utah. Emma Yip, of the Center for Biological Diversity, called the bid rejection “another showdown for the Trump administration” as it tries to prop up a dying industry.
“Coal is among the dirtiest energy sources on Earth, and burning it continues to sicken and kill Americans. There is no defensible reason to keep it on life support when no one ever wants to,” Yip said.