{"id":4009,"date":"2016-01-21T13:55:42","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T18:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/?p=4009"},"modified":"2023-02-10T17:46:45","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T22:46:45","slug":"sabin-center-comments-on-federal-assessment-of-ghg-impacts-from-coal-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2016\/01\/21\/sabin-center-comments-on-federal-assessment-of-ghg-impacts-from-coal-mining\/","title":{"rendered":"GHG Impacts From Coal Mining: Federal Assessment Critiqued By Sabin Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Sunset<\/a>Last week marked an important shift in executive policy on fossil fuel leasing: the Interior Department announced<\/a> a moratorium on new leases for coal mined from federal lands, pending a comprehensive reexamination of the decades-old coal leasing program. Interior will prepare a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS)<\/a> to examine how the coal leasing program can be \u201cmodernized\u201d to reflect current environmental, economic, and social considerations. The PEIS will include consideration of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from both the production and consumption<\/em> of federally mined coal.<\/p>\n

Interior\u2019s announcement came on the same day that the Sabin Center submitted a comment letter<\/a> on the Supplemental Draft EIS (SDEIS) for the United States Forest Service (USFS)\u2019s proposal to exempt approximately 20,000 acres of national forest from the Colorado Roadless Rule for the purpose of coal mining and development. The SDEIS is unique in that it is the first EIS for fossil fuel extraction that contains a detailed assessment of downstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the corresponding cost of those emissions. It will likely serve as a precedent for other EISs\u2014including the PEIS for the federal coal leasing program\u2014and thus it is critically important for USFS to conduct an accurate assessment of GHG emissions and economic impacts.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, USFS appears to have underestimated the costs of GHG emissions and overestimated the benefits of increased coal production in the SDEIS. This is because:<\/p>\n