California, New York, New Mexico and
Washington state sued after then-Interior
Secretary Ryan Zinke revived coal lease sales in
- The Northern Cheyenne Tribe, joined by
the Sierra Club and other environmental groups,
also filed a legal challenge, while state officials
from Wyoming and Montana argued against
reviving the moratorium.
The Biden administration had sought to delay
the legal challenges, but a federal judge said in
June that the states and environmentalists faced
potential damage if the case got stalled. U.S.
District Judge Brian Morris cited pending lease
applications for thousands of acres of federal
land holding at least 1 billion tons of coal.
“The administration must move quickly to
address harm from federal coal development
and stop new leasing. If they don’t, we are
prepared to head back to court,” said attorney
Jenny Harbine with Earthjustice, which
represents the environmental groups and tribe.
In 2017 and 2018, the government sold leases
for 134 million tons of coal on public land in
six states, according to figures provided by the
Interior Department. That’s a relatively small
amount compared with previous years, for
example 2011 and 2012, when more than 2
billion tons were sold in Wyoming alone.
Growing concerns over climate change have
put a new spotlight on the once-obscure
coal program, which last underwent major
environmental reviews in the 1970s and 1980s.
Extracting and burning fossil fuels from federal
land generates the equivalent of 1.4 billion
tons (1.3 billion metric tons) annually of the
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, according to