BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials rejected a mining company’s bid for more than 6 million tons of coal beneath a national forest in Utah, marking the third proposed coal sale from public lands in the West to fall through this month, the Interior Department disclosed Thursday.
The failed sales mark a setback in Republican President Donald Trump’s push to revive a coal mining industry that’s been in decline for almost two decades. Emissions from burning coal are a leading driver of climate change that’s raising sea levels and making weather more extreme.
The Interior Department rejected the sole bid it received for two tracts of federal coal on the Manti-La Sal National Forest because it did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act, agency spokesperson Alyse Sharpe said.
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