The Obama administration’s treatment of the coal industry will hit North Dakota hard, according to Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) who pledged this weekend to fight back. “Many of the administration’s latest moves threaten mining in our part of the world—and a threat to coal is a threat to North Dakota jobs, our economy and our reliable, redundant and affordable supply of electricity,” Heitkamp wrote in an editorial published by the Grand Forks Herald.
Among the anti-coal actions the senator mentioned is the recently enacted moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands, which Heitkamp described as “punitive and responsive to ideological forces that are anti-coal, as there have been no bidders to speak of at recent federal lease sales.”
The Interior Department announced in mid-January it would issue no new coal leases on federal lands while completing a programmatic environmental impact statement of the U.S. coal leasing program. The review is intended to determine if the program is properly structured to provide a fair return to taxpayers, reflects its impacts on the environment, and will continue to help meet the nation’s energy needs. The agency last conducted a PEIS for the federal coal program in 1983-1984. That review process also included a pause on coal leasing, as did the previous four.
“Federal leases are no small matter for North Dakota. Around 20 percent of our coal comes from federal leases, generating around $1 million a year in royalties for the state. Half of those funds support North Dakota counties and schools, especially in coal-producing areas,” Heitkamp wrote.
