A truck carrying a load of Powder River Basin coal (Photo by Dustin Bleizeffer of WyoFile).
Montana and Wyoming filed suit against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management on Thursday seeking to overturn the agency’s rule to end federal coal leasing in the Powder River Basin — the nation’s most prolific coal-producing region. Coal mines on the Wyoming side of the basin, which also extends into Montana, directly employ about 5,000 workers, according to the state.
The federal agency recently issued its final decision regarding a supplemental environmental impact statement and proposed amendment to land use plans for its Buffalo and Miles City, Montana, field offices, selecting a “no future coal leasing alternative.” It justified the move, in part, by noting that coal companies have not nominated a major new federal coal lease in the region in more than 10 years, and that existing leases not affected by the ban allow mining to continue through 2041 at the current rate of coal production.
But the states’ petition for review alleges the BLM’s decision to end coal leasing is unjustified and fails to comply with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
“Instead of working with the states to address their concerns, BLM pushed through their narrow-minded agenda to stop using coal, ignoring the multiple-use mandate and the economic impacts of this decision, including skyrocketing electricity bills for consumers,” Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming said Thursday in a prepared statement. “They did not do their job properly.”
The lawsuit was long sought by local officials in northeast Wyoming, as well as the far-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus of state lawmakers, who criticized Gordon for not filing suit earlier in the process. But the state did not have legal standing to sue until the BLM issued its final order, which came in November.
Gordon laid out his legal strategy at a town hall event in June in Gillette, assuring local leaders and residents he’d spare no resources in seeking to overturn the ban. He tapped the state’s $1.2 million “coal litigation fund” earlier this year to prepare Wyoming’s case against the BLM and announced an additional $800,000 allocation to the fund to support the effort.
Wyoming is now engaged in more than 50 lawsuits against Biden administration regulations that threaten the state’s fossil fuel industries, according to Gordon’s office.
“I look forward to the courts scrutinizing this misguided and politically-driven amendment which consciously ignored our country’s increasing demand for affordable energy,” Gordon said.
This story originally appeared in WyoFile, an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.