'Appalling': Outrage as Biden Prolongs Trump Coal Policy

A coalition of environmental groups slammed President Joe Biden on Friday for refusing to immediately reinstate the federal moratorium on coal leasing on public lands that was discarded more than four years ago by the Trump administration.

While the U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) says that it is assessing its coal leasing program, the agency responsible for managing public lands has not taken steps to prevent new leases from being sold before a comprehensive environmental review is completed.

Instead, the Biden administration continued to process applications for new coal leases throughout 2021, helping spark a 14% increase in coal consumption nationwide, which climate scientists say contributed to the ongoing, life-threatening surge in greenhouse gas emissions and global temperatures.

Although the tribal and conservation organizations suing the DOI stress that nothing meaningful has been done to mitigate air, water, and climate damages caused by the federal coal leasing program, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court not to rule on alleged legal violations in a filing submitted on Thursday.

"The Biden administration cannot have it both ways on coal," Jenny Harbine, managing attorney for Earthjustice's Northern Rockies office, said Friday in a statement. "While they seem to recognize that it is indefensible to continue to allow coal leasing on public lands, they are also refusing to do the bare minimum by reinstating the Obama-era coal leasing moratorium."

As the coal industry and the states of Montana and Wyoming defend former President Donald Trump's coal policy in court, the Biden administration is helping to prolong it through inaction, Indigenous rights and environmental advocates argue.

Biden, who vowed on the campaign trail that he would halt fossil fuel extraction on public lands, "came into office promising to be a climate champion," said Harbine. "But six years after [former] President [Barack] Obama paused our nation's coal leasing we are now taking steps in the wrong direction."