In May and June the Department of the Interior (DOI) plans to hold six hearings on the federal coal leasing program. The hearings are an opportunity for the public to comment as the agency reviews the controversial program. Numerous reports have criticized federal coal management in recent years. The hearings will shape the scope of a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on federal coal management (PEIS) announced in January.
Whistle Stop Tour
In March, WORC and the Northern Plains Resource Council set the groundwork in Montana for informed news coverage and robust participation during DOI’s review by conducting a Whistle Stop Tour of Montana media and policy makers. The tour featured presentations by Dan Bucks, a former Director of Revenue for Montana.
The tour visited editorial boards in Billings and Butte and met with more than 50 public officials, Northern Plains members, and allies in briefings in Helena and Billings. Bucks explained why the federal coal program has failed taxpayers, and how it has effectively served as a subsidy to the coal industry. Bucks also participated in three radio talk show interviews.
Hearing locations
The Coal PEIS hearings will take place in Casper, WY, Salt Lake City, UT, Knoxville, TN, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Junction, CO, and Seattle, WA.
Federal coal represents 40 percent of the coal mined in the U.S. It has come under sharp criticism over the past five years with numerous studies documenting as much as $1 billion annually lost to poor management practices by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). In addition, the BLM fails to account for the impact on climate of mining and burning, and fails to account for the externalized costs of coal exports on communities lying between the mines and proposed ports in the Pacific Northwest.
Scoping hearings will provide an opportunity for citizens to weigh in on revising the program to get a fair return to the public, adequately account for and minimize the impacts of coal leasing, and align the federal coal leasing program with the federal goals to set substantive limits on carbon to limit climate change.
Read more coal stories here.
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