(Reuters) -The Trump administration has postponed a scheduled sale of coal leases on federal lands in Wyoming two days after a disappointing auction in Montana, an Interior Department spokesperson said on Wednesday.
The Bureau of Land Management, a division of Interior that manages 245 million acres of federal lands, had been expected to keep processing permits and leases for oil, gas and coal operations during the government shutdown, according to contingency plans published last week.
A sale of 3,508 acres of federal coal reserves in Wyoming’s Campbell and Converse counties had been scheduled for Wednesday morning. The lease area contains 365 million tons of recoverable coal. Interior said it would post a new date for the sale but did not give a reason for the postponement.
BLM held a lease sale for 1,262 acres in Big Horn County, Montana on Monday that attracted one bid from the Navajo Transitional Energy Company, which operates the nearby Spring Creek Mine.
The bid of $186,000 for a lease with an estimated 167.5 million tons of recoverable coal equates to less than a penny per ton. The Interior Department blamed the administrations of former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama, both Democrats, for the weak industry interest.
“While we would have liked to see stronger participation, this sale reflects the lingering impact from Obama and Biden’s decades long war on coal which aggressively sought to end all domestic coal production and erode confidence in the U.S. coal industry,” the Interior Department said in a statement.
“Fortunately, President Trump and his Administration are rebuilding trust between industry and government as part of our broader effort to restore American Energy Dominance.”
Obama and Biden had toughened environmental regulations on coal to reduce pollution and climate impact, and encourage a transition to renewable energy sources.
BLM has not yet accepted the NTEC bid because under the leasing process it first must determine whether it represents fair market value.
NTEC had argued in sale documents that the fair market value of the coal should be close to the minimum bid of $100 per acre required by law. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
President Donald Trump has vowed to revive coal leasing on federal lands so coal can fuel more of the nation’s soaring electricity demand tied to artificial intelligence.
(Reporting by Nichola Groom; editing by Diane Craft)
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