PRESS STATEMENT: Senate Cancels Locally Developed Land Use Plan Amendment for Powder River Basin

Using the Congressional Review Act, Congress has now tossed aside years of BLM consultation with Wyoming ranchers, farmers, Tribes, and other stakeholders

Today, the Senate used the Congressional Review Act to cancel the Buffalo Field Office Resource Management Plan Amendment, a day after the House did the same. The Bureau of Land Management finalized the amendment last year after years of consultation with hundreds of local ranchers, farmers, Tribal leaders, property owners, and others in Wyoming whose livelihoods depend on responsible management of public lands and minerals in the Powder River Basin. 

The cancellation of the plan means that coal leasing can resume in the Powder River Basin despite the fact that there is no market demand for coal, something the BLM recognized when it postponed a coal lease sale in Wyoming, after a lease sale bid in Montana was rejected for not meeting the fair market value last month. The rejected bid for the Montana coal lease sale from the Navajo Transitional Energy Company (NTEC) amounted to one-tenth of a cent per ton.

Using the Congressional Review Act to cancel the Buffalo RMPA means that, without Congressional action, the BLM will be prohibited from ever developing a similar plan that ends coal leasing in the Powder River Basin.

After the Senate vote, Lynne Huskinson, board chair of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, former coal miner, and resident of Gillette Wyoming, issued the following statement:

“Sens. Barrasso and Lummis have railed against government overreach for years, championing local control, and yet they voted to dismiss the voices of hundreds of Wyomingites who helped develop the now cancelled Buffalo RMPA. Thanks to our senators, D.C. politicians have taken control of our public lands and minerals. We have been slapped down by Congress to gratify the coal industry at the expense of everyday people.”

More information:

Unprecedented use of this law could throw all federal land-use plans into ‘chaos’