Today, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released the latest results of their multi-year review of the federal coal program.  After conducting a series of listening sessions across the country in the summer of 2015, the BLM announced a formal programmatic review in April 2015. This summer, the BLM received more than 200,000 comments on the need to modernize and reform the federal coal program. In 2013, TCS released a report Federal Coal Leasing: Fair Market Value and a Fair Return for the American Taxpayer arguing for the program’s overhaul.  It has been more than three decades since the federal coal program has been reviewed.

Statement from Taxpayers for Common Sense President Ryan Alexander

January 11, 2017

“It is our sincere hope that the next Secretary of the Interior will follow through with a review of the federal coal program. It is a disservice to taxpayers, and to the states and towns that depend on revenue from coal mining, to ignore the well-documented problems with virtually every aspect of the process. Allowing the coal industry to control the leasing process and game the system has robbed taxpayers and harmed communities. If the next Administration or Congress want to bail out the coal industry, then they should do it in a transparent and accountable way, instead of undercutting an attempt to fix this broken system.”

For more information on the federal coal program, visit: www.taxpayer.net/coal