The federal coal program must end or seriously reform

The author contends that the Bureau of Land Management's coal leasing process is non-competitive and fails to capture fair market value, resulting in a $28.9 billion revenue loss over 30 years. The text calls for a halt to coal lease sales until reforms are implemented, including closing royalty loopholes, incorporating the social cost of carbon into pricing, and updating bonding requirements to protect public health and the environment. It asserts that keeping coal in the ground is the only approach consistent with climate science and the goal of avoiding irreversible climate catastrophe.

• The federal coal lease sale process is characterized as non-competitive and lacking transparency, with only 10 percent of the 107 leased coal tracts on public lands receiving more than one bidder since 1990.
• The failure to auction coal leases at fair market value has led to an estimated revenue loss of approximately $28.9 billion over the last 30 years, partly because royalty rates for surface and underground mining have not increased since 1920.
• Existing royalty loopholes allow companies to sell coal to subsidiaries at low prices for export, reducing the effective royalty rate to 4.9 percent, which is significantly lower than the legal minimum of 12.5 percent.
• The author proposes that incorporating the social cost of carbon into lease prices could raise the price to as high as $62 per ton, reflecting the true economic and environmental costs.
• The document states that at least 80 percent of fossil fuel reserves must remain underground to avoid irreversible climate catastrophe, making the federal coal program counterproductive to climate mitigation goals.

APA

Fox, A. (2015). The federal coal program must end or seriously reform. Friends of the Earth. https://foe.org/blog/2015-07-the-federal-coal-program-must-end-or-seriously-refor/

Chicago

Fox, Audrey. The federal coal program must end or seriously reform. Friends of the Earth, 2015. https://foe.org/blog/2015-07-the-federal-coal-program-must-end-or-seriously-refor/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Fox |first1=Audrey |title=The federal coal program must end or seriously reform |publisher=Friends of the Earth |date=29 July 2015 |url=https://foe.org/blog/2015-07-the-federal-coal-program-must-end-or-seriously-refor/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{fox2015federal, author = {Fox, Audrey}, title = {{The federal coal program must end or seriously reform}}, publisher = {Friends of the Earth}, year = {2015}, month = jul, url = {https://foe.org/blog/2015-07-the-federal-coal-program-must-end-or-seriously-refor/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }