The Powder River Basin is home to some of the largest active coal mines in the world, making up about 40% of all US coal production in recent years.
On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management released details of a proposal that would end new leasing and allow existing leases to continue coal extraction, which is forecasted to last in Wyoming until 2041.
Response to the decision was swift. Republican leadership in Montana and Wyoming met the decision with outrage, while conservation groups applauded it.
“I have very much hope, going forward with future plans, that that will become a much more common outcome,” said Melissa Hornbein, an attorney with the Western Environmental Law Center.
WELC was part of a coalition of environmental groups that sued the BLM during the Trump administration, arguing the agency failed to account for the impacts of burning fossil fuels on climate change and public health when issuing leases for coal, oil and gas extraction.
A Montana district court judge ruled in favor of the environmental groups in 2022, and the new BLM proposal comes as a result of that ruling.
“This is a really great first step,” Hornbein said.
Montana Republican Congressman Matt Rosendale said the ruling will have a negative impact on Montana, Wyoming and US energy production as a whole.
“Not only does it dramatically, negatively impact our economy and our state, but by doing this, it virtually breaks the back of the power grid that the entire nation is relying upon,” Rosendale said.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal accounted for about 16% of electricity generation in the United States in 2023, a smaller share than nuclear power or renewable resources. Natural gas makes up the largest share at 43%.
Citing the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Bureau of Land Management says coal production in the Wyoming-area of the Powder River Basin has declined by about half of its peak production in 2008.
There’s a 30-day protest period. If the proposal is successfully implemented, Rosendale said he believes a Republican president in the next administration would reverse it.
