The Trump administration’s attempt to revive a declining coal industry is running into yet another problem: Few want to mine for coal.
Coal industry players have spoken out against the Trump administration’s efforts to revive coal production, including its mandates for coal plants to stay open past their scheduled closure dates. Now, the administration is offering up millions of acres of public lands for mining, and companies aren’t bidding for them.
The Bureau of Land Management, the Interior Department agency that handles coal leasing, rescheduled a coal lease sale in Utah for the second time last week. The Trump administration in October rejected the only bid it received for more than 6 million tons of coal under two tracts of land in Utah. Statutory requirements say the Bureau of Land Management must reject bids that are below fair market value.