President Barack Obama has taken great strides to make the United States a leader on climate change during his eight years in office, but there is one more thing he should do in his last 100 days to cement his legacy, the Rainforest Action Network said in a report Wednesday. “To truly tip the scales and make a landmark impact on America’s relationship to fossil fuels, the President must end federal fossil fuel leasing,” the report says.
The Obama administration has leased more than 15 million acres of federal property for offshore oil and gas extraction, more than 10 million acres of federal land for onshore oil and gas extraction, and over 46,000 acres for coal extraction, according to the report. “[T]he American people deserve bold and direct leadership that will provide more than rhetoric for a just transition away from fossil fuels. A climate leader is one that uses their full leverage in the face of this global challenge; President Obama has yet to rise to that bar,” the report says.
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 review for the federal coal program in 1983-1984. Currently, approximately 41 percent of the nation’s annual coal production comes from federal land.
“President Obama must take the coal moratorium one step further and end the program in its entirety. History has shown that coal mining on public lands, which represents nearly 15 percent of U.S. fossil fuel emissions, is a harmful practice for local communities, workers, and the climate,” RAN said.
