Tell the Interior Department to Stop Subsidizing Coal Mining

From PennEnvironment (http://www.pennenvironment.org):

The Interior Department gave the second-largest coal company in the nation a huge discount on the cost of extracting coal from public land.¹

Fossil fuels are dirty. Coal is the dirtiest. Burning coal emits toxic smog into our air. It leaves us with acid rain and mercury pollution. In the power sector, it accounts for three-fifths of America’s global warming pollution.²

And right now, the Interior Department is subsidizing more coal mining.

We have a chance to reverse this wrong-headed decision and put a stop to this senseless subsidy. Will you make your voice heard? Call on the Interior Department to reverse the Arch Resources coal subsidy at https://pennenvironment.webaction.org/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=47729.

Subsidizing coal makes no sense. In 2019, even though coal supplied only 24% of our energy, it was responsible for 61% of our carbon emissions.³

We should be making it more expensive to mine coal. Here’s how: When companies mine coal on public lands, they have to pay royalties. Higher royalties mean lowered incentives to mine — and more money for projects that boost everything from renewable energy to endangered species protections.

Yet when Arch Resources requested a discount on mines on public land in Colorado and Wyoming, the Interior Department lowered the royalties down from 12.5% to 5% at one mine and just 2% at the other.⁴

Now that our country’s second-largest coal company has won this discount, more companies could come knocking at the Interior’s door. We need to make sure the department reverses this mistake and prevents it from occurring again.

You can help make this happen. Tell the Interior Department to reverse the Arch discount and reject future discounts for the coal companies mining our public lands.

The scars of coal are already all around us. In central Pennsylvania, an underground coal mine has been burning beneath a town for more than 50 years.⁵

In Appalachia, coal has left residents with toxic water for years. One resident was warned that if he washed his laundry using the coal-contaminated water, direct sunlight could set the clothes on fire.⁶

Worst of all, coal is responsible for almost one third of the increase in Earth’s temperatures since the 1800s.⁷

Our water, our air and our climate can’t take more coal. We certainly shouldn’t be subsidizing it. Call on the Interior Department to reverse its Arch decision and stop subsidizing coal extraction today.

1. Chris D’Angelo, “The Biden Administration Won’t Explain Its Handout To Big Coal,” Huffington Post, August 3, 2021.
2. “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed September 20, 2021.
3. “Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed September 20, 2021.
4. Chris D’Angelo, “The Biden Administration Won’t Explain Its Handout To Big Coal,” Huffington Post, August 3, 2021.
5. Michael Tanenbaum, “Apple trees, butterflies to be introduced in Centralia, Pennsylvania’s abandoned coal town,” PhillyVoice, April 5, 2021.
6. Gareth Evans, “A toxic crisis in America’s coal country,” BBC News, February 11, 2019.
7. Doyle Rice, “Coal is the main offender for global warming, and yet the world is using it more than ever,” USA Today, March 26, 2019.