Climate-Change Fight Shifting To Western US Coal Mines

Western U.S. coal producers are increasingly coming under fire by environmental groups that see a chance to fight climate change by curbing output from the nation's largest coal basin. For years environmentalists have lobbied for tougher limits on the emissions of heat-trapping gases blamed for climate change from power plants, vehicles and other direct sources. But the collapse of federal climate-change legislation in recent weeks and growth of coal exports to Asia is leading some groups to look past the smoke stacks and aim to quash emissions by stymieing production of fuel. The Powder River Basin, which underlies Wyoming and Montana, is one of the country's largest sources of fossil fuel, accounting for about 40% of U.S. coal output. Combustion of this coal in power plants accounts for about 13% of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Most of the basin's coal is mined through federal leases by the largest U.S. producers such as Peabody Energy Corp. (BTU) and Alpha Natural Resources Inc. (ANR). Groups including the Sierra Club and WildEarth Guardians, a New Mexico-based environmental group, are challenging the legality of a series of new leases the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, has begun issuing. They say the leases could open up as much as 5.8 billion tons of coal reserves for mining, ensuring the basin's dominance for years to come. The environmentalists claim the BLM isn't properly taking into account the impact of burning the coal on the climate...more