Judge nixes bid to stop coal sales that Trump revived

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A judge threw out a lawsuit on Friday from a coalition of states, environmental groups and American Indians which sought to revive an Obama-era moratorium against U. S. government coal sales on public lands in the West.

U. S. District Judge Brian Morris said President Donald Trump’s administration had fixed its initial failure to consider the consequences for climate change from ending the moratorium. Acting under an earlier order in the case, the administration in February released an analysis that said the decision to resume coal sales would make little difference over time in greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, a contention critics said was flawed.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued the administration only considered emissions from a handful of leases and failed to capture the cumulative, long-term impact of the coal program.

But Morris declined to weigh in on the accuracy of the administration’s conclusions. He said the February analysis was enough to fulfill the administration’s immediate legal obligations. Any review of whether it was flawed would require a new lawsuit, he added.

“Plaintiffs remain free to file a complaint to challenge the sufficiency of the (environmental analysis) and the issuance of any individual coal leases,” the judge wrote in a 24-page opinion.

Trump pledged as a presidential candidate to end the moratorium — part of what he called the “war on coal” — and in office has eased regulations in an attempt to bolster the industry. That’s despite market forces that have sharply curtailed mining. Coal demand among utilities has been dropping for years because of competition from cheaper fuels and rising costs to control pollution from coal.

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the decline. Yet critics of the coal program note that some lease sales have continued and say the administration’s moves could open tens of thousands of acres of public lands to new mining.

Attorney Jenny Harbine, who represented the Northern Cheyenne tribe and several environmental groups in the case, said the ruling would not stop the shift under way by many utilities away from coal to renewables and other cleaner sources of electricity.

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