On Friday, the White House is announcng that President Obama will stop issuing new permits for coal extraction in public lands, The New York Times reports, citing an administration official. The freeze on new mining leases will reportedly stay in place until the Interior Department reviews the permitting and leasing process, or until a future president reverses it, but leaving coal unmined would be another blow to an industry shrinking due to cheap natural gas and proposed regulations to curb greenhouse gasses from burning coal.
Currently about 40 percent of the coal mined in the U.S. is on federal lands, most of it in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Companies wouldn't lose their current leases, and halting new permits would only reduce the amount of coal production on federal lands after about 20 years, the administration official tells The Times. Environmental groups applauded the expected move; the coal industry did not. "It appears that they're going after the federal coal leasing program with the intention of keeping coal in the ground," said National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich.
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