A recent lawsuit brought forward by environmental groups is attempting to halt all Bureau of Land Management (BLM) coal leasing activity until a 1979 environmental analysis has been updated.
According to a news release from the governor’s office the lawsuit, Western Organization of Resource Councils v. Jewell, claims that the BLM must stop leasing coal until it updates a 1979 environmental analysis of the regional coal-leasing program.
“If I had to guess, I would say that probably no one thinks this is going anywhere,” Charles Mason, the H.A. “Dave” True, Jr. Chair in Petroleum and Natural Gas Economics, said. “An advocacy group merely saw an opportunity to attempt to bog things down in litigation for a short period of time.”
In the news release Mead said that environmental groups are asking the court to order the BLM to undertake a fruitless exercise.
Strategies of this sort are not often employed by non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) to combat private sector leasing of public lands Mason said.
“What’s odd is that if this really were a viable means of attacking coal leasing, wouldn’t you have expected someone to hit on this sooner?” said Mason. “Why these guys? Why now? The issue they’re raising has been around for a while and other groups obviously thought it was a non-starter.”
The advocacy group, Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC), is a grassroots collective of community organizations from several states including Wyoming.
Mason said that one possible reason WORC pursued this case now has to do with infrastructural degeneration.
“It just so happens that within the next five or so years a large number of the coal powered refineries that were built are going to need to be replaced,” Mason said. “That means the technology going into constructing those refineries has to be compatible with whatever fossil fuel our economy will be demanding for the foreseeable future.”
And that fossil fuel may not be coal, Mason said.
“The trend seems to be that natural gas is on the rise,” said Mason. “Obviously I can’t say for certain, but I would not be surprised if members of WORC were aware of the need for new infrastructure and were taking advantage of the timing and the overall national economic trends.”
University of Wyoming petroleum engineering student Shane Bauman said that he does not approve of WORC’s efforts.
“To me, I see a group of people who simply don’t care what’s going to occur to a state’s economy if they happen to be successful,” Bauman said. “The entire thing seems really frivolous. I don’t think coal is something that’s going to be written out of our economy for a really long time.”
The Bureau of Land Management declined to comment on the litigation.
Coal story.
