Welfare Coal: These Three Coal Companies Want to Hide How Much Publicly Owned Coal They Mine

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By Joe Smyth, crossposted with permission from Climate Investigationsย Center

Earlier this year, I looked at just how muchย the largest U.S. coal mining companies depend on access to subsidized federal coal, most of it extracted from public lands in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming. The U.S. Interior Department tracks the amount of publicly owned coal mined by each company, but doesnโ€™t publicly report thisย information.

As I recently learned, even a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) might not reveal just how much publicly owned coal companies areย mining.

A lack of transparency is one of many major problems with the federal coal program. The Interior Department acknowledged this when the Obama administrationย establishedย a moratorium and overhaul of the federal coal program in January 2016, and Interior Secretary Jewell announced โ€œthat the Interior Department will undertake a series of good government reforms to improve transparency and administration of the federal coalย program.โ€

Data obtained from an earlier FOIA requestย showedย that in 2014, most of the coal mined by the three biggest coal companies in the United States actually belonged to the Americanย public.

So despite regular industry cries of a โ€œwar on coal,โ€ companies like Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Cloud Peak Energy also, paradoxically, owe the massive scale of their operations in large part to this major corporate welfare program. Mining companies responded by defending their dependence on federal coal,ย but didnโ€™t dispute the data.

Pie charts showing ratio of federal coal mined by three largest U.S. coal companies.

Since then, Iโ€™ve requested similar data, for 2015 and a portion of 2016. But this time, each of Cloud Peak Energyโ€™s subsidiaries objected, apparently urging the Interior Department not to show the public how much federal coal the company mined last year. With all of its operations in the Powder River Basin, Cloud Peak Energy depends more heavily on federal coal than any other major mining company in the U.S., extracting over 75 million tons inย 2014.

Kiewit Mining Group, a subsidiary of major construction company Kiewit Corporation, also objected. Like Cloud Peak Energyโ€™s mines, in 2014 federal coal accounted for most of the coal that Kiewit extracted from its Buckskin mine in Wyoming, theย ninth largest coal mineย in the U.S.

Two Murray Energy subsidiaries, which operate underground coal mines in Utah, objected as well. It seems that these three companies donโ€™t just want to keep leasing and mining federal coal at subsidized rates, they also donโ€™t even want the public to know how much federal coal theyย mine.

We think the amount of publicly owned coal mined by these companies is public information, so weโ€™reย challengingย the Interior Departmentโ€™s recent decision to withhold this information. This coal belongs to the American public, and mining it impacts communities in a variety of ways, while burning it fuels climate change and airย pollution.

Some companies, likeย Peabody Energyย andย Arch Coal, use revenue generated from mining this coal to fund climate denialย efforts.

Other companies, like Cloud Peak Energy, pay former tobacco lobbyists to try and guide the coal industry through growing public opposition to their product by learning the โ€œlessons from the tobacco wars.โ€ Some of that money also goes toย lobby groupsย andย PR campaigns, while millions go to executiveย salariesandย bonuses. Federal coal mining also provides tax revenue and jobs โ€Šโ€” โ€Šthese too, of course, vary byย company.

The breadth of these impacts from federal coal, and the companies that mine it, is why itโ€™s so important that the Interior Department is pursuing a comprehensive review of the federal coal programโ€Šโ€”โ€Šand why the agency has repeatedly sought public input to inform thatย review.

But that public input is hampered when the Interior Department continues old habits by deferring to mining companies and keeping secret information about the way it is managing the publicโ€™s coal. Thatโ€™s not consistent with Interior Secretary Jewellโ€™s commitment to improve transparency of the federal coalย program.

Main image: Coal mining in Wyoming. Credit: U.S.ย Bureau of Landย Management

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