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U.S. pauses new coal leases on federal land

Xinhua, January 16, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. Interior Department said on Friday that the Obama administration will halt new coal leases on federal land for three years, as the country launched a comprehensive review of its coal program.

"We haven't undertaken a comprehensive review of the program in more than 30 years, and we have an obligation to current and future generations to ensure the federal coal program delivers a fair return to American taxpayers and takes into account its impacts on climate change," said Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

The full review is expected to take approximately three years, examining concerns that have been raised by the Government Accountability Office, the Interior Department's Inspector General, Members of Congress and the public. During the reviewing period, the Interior Department will not institute new coal leases.

The existing coal leases and production activities will not be affected. The government will continue to offer leases of mining metallurgical coal used in steel production and emergency leases to meet insufficient reserves for power generation.

Jewell also said the Interior Department will undertake a series of reforms to improve transparency and administration of the federal coal program.

These reforms include establishing a publicly available database to account for the carbon emitted from fossil fuels developed on public lands, requiring Bureau of Land Management offices to publicly post online pending requests to lease coal or reduce royalties, and facilitating the capture of waste mine methane.

These actions quickly drew criticism from Republicans. House Speaker Paul Ryan said those actions were "president's ruthless pursuit of destroying people's low-cost energy sources in order to cement his own climate legacy."

At present over 40 percent of U.S. coal production was on federal land.

Jewell said, after the pause, companies can continue to mine the large amount of coal reserves already under federal coal leases, estimated to be enough to sustain current levels of production for approximately 20 years. Endit