Billings, Mont. – Federal officials rejected a mining company’s bid for 1.3 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 failed sales mark a setback in President Donald Trump’s push to revive a coal mining industry that’s been in decline for almost two decades.

The Interior Department rejected the sole bid it received for coal on a proposed 120-acre (49-hectare) lease on the Manti-La Sal National Forest near central Utah’s Skyline Mine because it did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act, agency spokesperson Alyse Sharpe said Thursday.

The leasing act requires companies to pay fair market value for coal mined on public lands. Sharpe declined to say how much was b

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