For the United States to do its part to deliver on the international goal of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, coal leasing on public lands must end, nearly 70 scientists stated Wednesday in a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and two top officials at the Bureau of Land Management . “According to a large body of scientific research, holding temperature rise to ‘well below 2°C’ requires that the vast majority of global and US fossil fuels stay in the ground. Effectively, this means that fossil fuel emissions must be phased out globally within the next few decades,” the group wrote.
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.
“We urge you to end federal coal leasing, extraction and burning in order to advance U.S. climate objectives and protect public health, welfare and biodiversity,” the letter says.
