Administration issues new coal leases amid uncertain policy landscape

[The Straight Story]

Administration issues new coal leases amid uncertain policy landscape
By Amy Harder National Journal March 23, 2011

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar trekked to Wyoming on Tuesday to announce major new coal leases in the state. Yet there are no plans to build new coal-fired power plants there because of the uncertainty surrounding the Obama administration's climate-change regulations.

The coal from the leases will be used to generate electricity in coal-fired power plants already built within the state's border and around the country. Coal provides almost half of the nation's electricity, and that will likely continue for at least the next couple of decades.

But in the long term, the lease sales illustrate the conundrum that the industry faces because of the Environmental Protection Agency's climate rules: Companies can mine the coal, but federal policies make it economically difficult to use it within the United States. That reality is compelling companies to export coal overseas, and sales like this will only encourage more of it.


Wyoming's Powder River Basin, where the new leases are located, is the largest coal-producing region in the country and accounts for 40 percent of all coal mined in the United States. Salazar said on Tuesday that the new leases contain an estimated 758 million tons of coal.

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