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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2018
States cite climate worries in push to stop coal sales
Washington is
among the states
By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. —
Four states that say burning
coal will hurt their residents
as it makes climate change
worse are trying to stop the
Trump administration from
selling vast reserves of the
fuel that are beneath public
lands.
Attorneys for California,
New Mexico, New York and
Washington argue the coal
sales have been shortchang-
ing taxpayers because of low
royalty rates and cause pollu-
tion that puts the climate and
public health at risk.
The states were joined
by conservation groups and
Montana’s Northern Chey-
enne tribe in a lawsuit that
seeks to revive a coal leasing
moratorium imposed under
President Barack Obama.
The moratorium blocked
new lease sales from federal
lands that hold billions of
tons of the fuel.
U.S. District Judge Brian
Morris is presiding over a
hearing today on whether
the moratorium should be
reinstated.
The Trump administration
said in court fi lings that end-
ing the moratorium last year
was of critical importance
to the economy. That claim
comes despite the slow pace
of lease sales in recent years
and a precipitous drop in
demand for the heavily pol-
luting fuel.
U.S. lands in Western
states including Wyoming,
Montana, Utah and Colorado
Ryan Dorgan/The Casper Star-Tribune
Rail cars are fi lled with coal and sprayed with a topper agent to suppress dust at Cloud Peak Energy’s Antelope
Mine north of Douglas, Wyo., in 2014.
are a major source of coal for
mining companies. There are
7.4 billion tons of the fuel in
roughly 300 leases adminis-
tered by the Bureau of Land
Management .
Morris,
who
was
appointed
by
Obama,
recently ruled in a separate
case that the administration
must consider reducing coal
mining in the Powder River
Basin of Wyoming and Mon-
tana to help combat climate
change.
The judge has played the
role of spoiler to Trump on
another Obama administra-
tion policy reversal — the
contentious Keystone XL oil
sands pipeline from Canada.
Trump approved the pipeline
last year, but Morris blocked
it temporarily in March. The
judge said further environ-
Legislature to weigh
statewide tax on
plastic bags, straw ban
Associated Press
SALEM — The Legis-
lature will consider a state-
wide tax on plastic bags
and a ban on plastic straws.
The Statesman Jour-
nal reported a Senate com-
mittee voted to introduce
both legislative concepts,
or preliminary bills, during
an informational hearing
Wednesday.
Both bills would help
reduce plastic waste that
ends up in landfi lls and the
environment.
“From our perspective,
nothing we use for 10 min-
utes should pollute the envi-
ronment for hundreds of
years,” said Celeste Meif-
fren-Swango, state director
of Environment Oregon.
One would impose a
5 cent per bag tax on sin-
gle-use plastic bags used
by retail stores selling food
or alcohol, and require the
establishments to provide
paper checkout bags.
The tax wouldn’t apply
to meat and vegetable bags,
or other noncheckout bags.
And customers who use
vouchers and state benefi t
cards would be exempt.
Money collected would
go to the Oregon Depart-
ment of Environmental
Quality for a new Plas-
tic Cleanup and Recycling
Fund.
Fourteen Oregon cit-
ies have banned single-use
plastic bags.
The Legislature previ-
ously considered banning
plastic bags in 2010, 2011
and 2012. All three bills
died in committee.
This is the fi rst time a
tax, rather than a ban, has
been proposed. Because the
bill would raise revenue, it
would require a three-fi fths
majority approval.
Another measure would
prohibit restaurants from
providing single-use plas-
tic straws to customers
unless they request a straw.
The proposal specifi -
cally exempts straws made
from sugar cane, pasta
and some other natural
ingredients.
Violators could be fi ned
up to $25 per day, with a
cap of $300 per year.
mental reviews were needed
for the line to comply with
federal laws.
Some of those same laws
are at the center of the coal
moratorium dispute.
Sweeping review
The states and their allies
want to push to stop further
leasing and resume a sweep-
ing review of the program’s
environmental effects. Gov-
ernment attorneys and the
National Mining Association
say the review started under
Obama was a voluntary step
and the Trump administra-
tion is within its rights to end
it.
“We view this as a legal
issue and believe this is an
open-and-shut case,” said
Conor Bernstein with the
mining association, which
has intervened in the case.
Growing concerns over
climate change have put a
spotlight on the once-obscure
coal leasing program, which
has gone largely unchanged
and not been through a major
environmental review since
1979.
Companies have mined
about 4 billion tons of coal
from federal reserves in the
past decade, contributing $10
billion to federal and state
coffers through royalties and
other payments.
The Obama administra-
tion blocked the sale of new
leases in 2016 out of con-
cerns over climate-chang-
ing greenhouse gases from
burning coal and to review
royalty rates paid by mining
companies for federal coal.
Interior Secretary Ryan
Zinke withdrew the morato-
rium in March 2017. He said
the Obama administration’s
environmental review would
cost “many millions of dol-
lars,” and improvements to
the program could be made
without prolonged study.
California Attorney Gen-
eral Xavier Becerra said Zin-
ke’s actions fl y in the face of
a government report released
last month that predicted dire
consequences from climate
change for the U.S. economy.
“He ignored the law in
opening the door to expanded
coal leasing without taking a
hard look at the environmen-
tal consequences,” Becerra
said in a statement.
Shortchanging
taxpayers
Federal
offi cials
and
members of Congress have
said for years that royalty
rates were shortchanging
taxpayers. Under Obama,
offi cials began considering
raising rates, but it was not
done.
After the Trump admin-
istration ended the mora-
torium, Zinke appointed a
committee to review roy-
alty rates. Critics contend he
has stacked the panel with
industry-friendly represen-
tatives interested in main-
taining the status quo.
Since January 2017, the
government has sold leases
for 134 million tons of
coal on more than 13,000
acres of public land in six
states, according to fi gures
provided by the Interior
Department.
That’s a relatively small
amount compared with pre-
vious years, for example
2011 and 2012, when more
than 2 billion tons were sold
in Wyoming alone.
Despite the slowdown
in sales, the outcome of the
court case could be pivotal
to the industry’s long-term
outlook and determine if it
has access to a cheap and
readily available supply of
coal. For environmental-
ists, it’s a question of mak-
ing sure that coal is never
burned to prevent carbon
dioxide emissions tied to
climate change.
“The idea that they lease
millions of acres of public
lands every year to private
companies so that they can
extract the coal and we’ve
never once studied the cli-
mate impacts, that should
bother people,” Sierra Club
attorney Nathaniel Shoaff
said.
Federal judge dismisses more Millennium claims
Latest in a series
of setbacks
By KATIE FAIRBANKS
The Daily News
LONGVIEW, Wash. —
In a potentially fatal blow
to the Longview coal proj-
ect, a federal judge Tuesday
upheld the state of Washing-
ton’s denial of a key water
quality permit for the $680
million export dock.
Judge Robert Bryan
of U.S. District Court in
Tacoma dismissed claims
by Lighthouse Resources
and BNSF Railway that the
permit denial pre-empted
the Interstate Commerce
Commission
Termina-
tion Act and the Ports and
Waterways Safety Act.
Bryan found the com-
panies failed to prove that
the federal acts should have
barred the state Department
of Ecology from denying
the water permit.
Millennium began the
permitting process for the
coal terminal in 2012. The
state denied its application
for a water quality certifi cate
in September 2017, pointing
to “signifi cant unavoidable
adverse impacts” outlined
in the fi nal environmen-
tal impact assessment for
the project. The state also
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said it didn’t have reason-
able assurance that the ter-
minal would meet applica-
ble water quality standards.
Lighthouse Resources
sued Gov. Jay Inslee’s
administration over the
decision in January. Six
coal-producing
states
— Montana, Wyoming,
South Dakota, Utah, Kan-
sas and Nebraska — inter-
vened in the suit on behalf
of Lighthouse and the rail-
road, alleging that Washing-
ton was blocking interstate
commerce by blocking the
project.
Six other states — Cali-
fornia, Maryland, New Jer-
sey, New York, Massachu-
setts and Oregon — entered
the suit on behalf of the state
Department of Ecology,
saying the state has a right
to regulate its environment.
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