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Federal judge in Montana halts coal leases until more environmental study can be done – Daily Montanan [1]

['Darrell Ehrlick', 'More From Author', '- September']

Date: 2022-09-09  

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Montana halted coal leasing on federal public lands until the Bureau of Land Management does a more detailed environmental analysis.

Montana Federal District Court Judge Brian M. Morris reinstated a moratorium that was overturned by Ryan Zinke, who was then President Donald Trump’s Secretary of the Interior. Zinke is now running for Congress in Montana’s western district.

Previously, President Barack Obama had issued a moratorium on any new coal leasing, which was overturned by Zinke. Morris’ decision reinstates that moratorium, saying that stopping the leasing will give the BLM a chance to take into consideration the impacts of coal on the environment.

A wide-ranging environmental coalition challenged the Zinke-era rollback, and those groups included the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Montana Environmental Information Center.

Zinke’s order represented a near-complete reversal from the Obama years. He ordered that new leases must resume “expeditiously,” and removed consideration of the impacts the coal leasing would have to public lands and the environment.

However, the environmental groups argued that the major change in policy, ordered by Zinke, violated the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to “take a hard look” at the “environmental consequences” of their actions. Morris’ order said that new coal leases must contain an environmental impact statement that includes “a full and fair discussion of significant environmental impacts.”

Morris said that the new Zinke-era rule failed to “consider all direct, indirect and cumulative impacts” of restarting coal leasing that was stopped by the Obama administration.

“The ‘status quo’ that existed before the Zinke order was a moratorium on coal leasing. Because the baseline alternative must consider the status quo, BLM was required to begin its analysis from that point,” Morris said.

In court documents, the BLM also acknowledged that pending leases, including 1.8 billion tons of coal from 28 mines in nine states, did not address the cumulative greenhouse gas emissions from them.

“BLM’s analysis was arbitrarily curtailed and failed to consider relevant factors,” the judge’s decision said. “For example, because the final environmental analysis assumed the leases would have been issued regardless, the (analysis) stated that leases would yield no change in greenhouse gas emissions or climate impacts.”

“The tribe has fought and sacrificed to protect our homelands for generations, and our lands and waters mean everything to us. We are thrilled that the court is requiring what we have always asked for: Serious consideration of the impacts of the federal coal leasing program on the Tribe and our way of life,” said Northern Cheyenne President Serena Wetherelt. “We hope that President Biden and Secretary Haaland fulfill their trust obligation to take a hard look at the overall energy program on federal lands and really consider how to make it best serve the tribe, taxpayers and the climate.”

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2022/09/09/federal-judge-in-montana-halts-coal-leases-until-more-environmental-study-can-be-done/

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