We are rapidly changing our earth’s climate and causing permanent damage such as rise in sea level, global temperature increases, shrinking ice sheets, and extreme weather. These changes kill our forests, force critters out their homes, and threaten everything from our food supply to our water. Our dependence on energy and the reckless development and exploration of it is pushing the earth’s atmosphere towards a breaking point with irreversible consequences. Of all carbon pollutant creators, coal is one of the worst offenders. WildEarth Guardians is working to keep coal in the ground and carbon out of the atmosphere by bringing an end to federal coal mining, transport, and burning. Our Powering Past Coal Campaign seeks to curb carbon pollution by exposing the true environmental and health costs of coal. The transition is not easy, yet together we can move towards a clean energy future to safeguard our planet.
WildEarth Guardians will continue to safeguard the climate by urging the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) to adopt a moratorium on leasing public land’s coal and working to retire existing coal leases.
Over the next twelve months, we will leverage a recent victory in a Colorado District Court ruling that coal companies must consider the social cost of coal when planning for new or expanded mines. For our health and our clean air, we will strategically challenge the logic of key new or expanding coal operations.
We will also push Interior to do honest reporting to the American public on the climate impacts of the federal coal program, to include the public when considering new or expanding mines, and to work with communities dependent on publicly owned coal to transition to more sustainable and prosperous economies.
WildEarth Guardians’ vision is for a coal-free energy portfolio that protects and restores the clean skies and fresh air of the American West.
Recently, Guardians won two precedent-setting legal victories against the U.S. Department of the Interior. In July 2014, a court agreed with us that the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management illegally approved Arch’s mining plans by failing to account for the cost of the additional carbon pollution that would result. This is a hard-earned game changer. Not only did the court overturn the federal government, but the ruling makes clear that in approving more coal mining on our public lands, the costs of carbon pollution can’t be ignored.
In May 2015 a federal judge agreed with Guardians that the Interior Department brazenly violated one of our nation’s cornerstone environmental laws—the National Environmental Policy Act—by failing to consider the climate implications of expanding the Colowyo coal mine, located on public land near the western Colorado town of Craig. The judge gave the Interior Department 120 days to fix its flawed analysis. Together, these two wins have begun to turn the tide on coal.
WildEarth Guardians’ bold advocacy is driving real progress to confront the climate crisis and to hold our officials accountable to help coal communities deal with the realities of our changing times.
