Former President Barack Obama is long gone from office, but a 2016 ban his administration imposed on coal leases on federal lands is back in place after a Friday court ruling that reinstated it.
Coal mined from leases on federal land makes up almost half the nation’s annual coal production. Private companies do the actual mining in states such as Wyoming, Montana and Colorado.
“This decision is a step backwards that doesn’t protect the environment and ensures consumers will pay more for energy. Enacting a moratorium at a moment when coal is badly needed to ensure a secure and reliable energy supply is wrong-headed on many fronts,” Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement, according to the Kilgore News-Herald.
“This decision is bad for Wyoming. It hurts our country’s ability to provide reliable, low-cost energy to Americans and hinders the abilities of companies to plan and invest in new technologies like carbon capture and utilization.”
The 2016 ban had been reversed by the Trump administration in 2017. That prompted a lawsuit, according to The Washington Post.
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In 2019, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris ruled against the Trump administration, saying a National Environmental Policy Act review was required to lift the ban.
In April 2021 Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland threw out the Trump-era policy but did not reinstate the ban, leading to a return to court in which environmental groups called for Morris to order the ban reinstated to ensure coal could not be mined on federal lands at some future date, Reuters reported.
Morris gave the groups a win Friday.
“The Haaland order maintains the potential for environmental harm that could result from lifting the coal leasing moratorium, however, that the Court determined required NEPA review,” Morris ruled, according to Bloomberg.
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“A live controversy persists because the coal leasing moratorium, and associated environmental protections, established by the Jewell Order, remains revoked,” Morris wrote. “The Haaland order has not returned the…
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