Enough, already.
That’s what 67 prominent scientists are telling Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell, whose department is conducting a review of the U.S. program to lease federal lands for coal mining.
“The science is clear: to satisfy our commitment under the Paris Agreement to hold globaltemperature increase well below 2°C, the United States must keep the vast majority of its coal inthe ground,” the scientists, including Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science, and James Hansen from Columbia University’s The Earth Institute, wrote in a letter delivered to Jewell on Tuesday. “We urge you to end federal coal leasing, extraction and burning in order to advance U.S. climate objectives and protect public health, welfare and biodiversity.”
More than 40 percent of coal produced in the United States comes from federal lands, under a leasing program that has not been reviewed in more than 30 years.
Three Things To Know About Obama’s Overhaul Of The Federal Coal ProgramClimate CREDIT: AP Photo/Matthew Brown In his final State of the Union address in January, President Obama made an…thinkprogress.orgPresident Obama announced the review during his State of the Union address in January, and the White House issued a report last month detailing how the American taxpayer is being short-changed by the leasing program. While coal mined on federal lands brings in millions of dollars in revenue, it is far cheaper than coal mined on private land.
But even if the government increased the terms of the leasing program — at present, taxpayers are supposed to get 12.5 percent royalty on federal coal, but audits have shown the real rate is much lower — the price would likely still not account for the environmental and climate impacts of coal mining.
People have long complained that U.S. coal is underpriced, and the government held a series of sessions last year to get the public’s thoughts on the program.
Coal Companies Don’t Pay Enough To Mine For Coal On Federal Land, Report SaysClimate by CREDIT: AP PHOTO/PATRICK SEMANSKY, FILE Coal companies that mine on federal lands have been exploiting…thinkprogress.org“If they do give a full and honest look at how the federal coal program is impacting our climate — and with associated harms to public health and biodiversity — then they would have no choice but to permanently end coal leasing on public lands,” Shaye Wolf, climate science director for the Center for Biological Diversity, told ThinkProgress.
Groups like the Center for Biological Diversity are urging the government to include the overall costs of coal in its review, which is expected to take three years.
“We need to keep up public pressure on the next administration,” Wolf said. “Fossil fuel emissions need to be phased out in the next couple decades. It’s a fast timeline.”
By and large, scientists agree that the vast majority of the remaining fossil fuel resources in the world must be left unburned if humankind is going to avoid raising the global temperature and causing catastrophic climate disruption.
“Coal mining is certainly incompatible with maintaining a livable climate,” Wolf said.