Senate Passes Congressional Review Act Resolution to Reopen Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to New Coal Leasing
Congress and the administration continue attacks on our national public lands
Contacts
Perry Wheeler, Earthjustice, pwheeler@earthjustice.org
The U.S. Senate today passed a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution to reopen hundreds of thousands of acres of national public lands in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to new coal leasing. The resolution rescinds a 2024 resource management plan ending new leasing in a portion of the nation’s largest coal producing region. The House narrowly passed a companion resolution earlier this week and it will now head to President Trump for his signature.
Congress also passed a similar CRA resolution to reopen public lands in eastern Montana to new coal leasing on October 8. The CRA allows a bare majority in each chamber of Congress to undo any given rule. Before this year, Congress had never passed a CRA resolution to undo a land management plan.
Despite the administration and its allies in Congress’ attempts to prop up the coal industry, recent lease sales in the Powder River Basin have fallen flat. On October 6, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) held a lease sale for 167 million tons of coal on public land in Montana — the lone bid for one-tenth of a penny per ton of coal was rejected because it did not meet the fair market value of the coal offered. A second for 6 million tons of coal next to the Skyline Mine in Utah had its lone bid rejected for the same reason. A third proposed lease sale in Wyoming was indefinitely cancelled after the failed sale in Montana.
“Congress and the administration continue to do everything in their power to put the fossil fuel industry before the interests of the American people,” said Jenny Harbine, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Northern Rockies Office. “Despite their best efforts, they have not been able to reverse decades of market contraction in the coal industry. All they are doing is increasing private profit for the handful of companies still trying to squeeze as much as they can out of coal, regardless of the impacts on local communities, ecosystems, and our climate.”
Additional Resources
About Earthjustice
Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.