The Biden administration Wednesday formally moved to end coal leasing in the Powder River Basin — the nation’s largest coal-producing region — drawing a sharp rebuke and threats from Republicans and the mining sector.
The Bureau of Land Management published two final plans to end new federal coal leases in the PRB in Montana and Wyoming, home to 40 percent of U.S. coal production.
In doing so, the agency is halting new leases for coal development projects in the region and reversing prior approvals dating back to President-elect Donald Trump’s first term.
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“The decision is to make no federal coal available for future leasing,” Todd Yeager, the field manager for the BLM’s Buffalo office, wrote in the decision.
