American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2016 - 108

new rules," he wrote in an op-ed piece.
"Now, three years later, MATS has been
rightfully remanded. The EPA is required
to take into account the costs of the
MATS regulation, but much of its damaging effects are baked into the cake already
and will hit ratepayers, regardless of the
court's ruling.
"To make matters worse," Lee added,
"EPA sees no problem in a regulatory
process that forces electricity companies
to comply with an illegal regulation."
Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy Executive Director Marita Noon is
cited in published reports saying the
Supreme Court's move prevents that scenario. "The justices evidently looked at
history and decided they didn't want
what happened with MATS to be repeated," Noon is quoted. "The MATS decision
came too late to make any real difference,
resulting in the premature closure of numerous power plants, lost jobs and higher electricity prices, but (the Supreme
Court's) swift and sound decision to
block the CPP prevents a reoccurrence of
that costly fiasco."
Comments from a number of analysts
both for and against the CPP interpret the
stay as a negative omen for the rule's
prospects. "For the court to take this action, a majority of the justices must
feel the states challenging the rule have
a significant likelihood of ultimately
prevailing on the merits," relates Heartland Institute Research Fellow H. Sterling Burnett. "This indicates the CPP
goes beyond the EPA's power under the
Clean Air Act."
Simliarly, press accounts quote Seth
Jaffe, the former president of the American College of Environmental Lawyers,
saying, "One has to conclude that five justices have decided the rule must go."
Scalia's death changes the bigger picture for the case, although numerous legal
analysts say the stay itself appears safe.
One press account quotes Richard Lazarus,
environmental law professor at Harvard
University, saying there is no reason to assume the court will revisit the stay order:
"It is final as voted on by the full court at
the time and is not subject to revisiting any
more than any other ruling by the court before the justice's passing."
The stay prevents the CPP from taking
effect until after the Supreme Court upholds the rule, or alternately, after the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit does so and the high court declines to hear an appeal. However, it
takes only four justices to decide the
Supreme Court will hear a case. The
D.C. Circuit has scheduled oral arguments on the case for June (AOGR, February 2016, pg. 19).
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Coal Announcement Portends
Broader Attack, Experts Worry
WASHINGTON-In the U.S. Department of Interior's announcement that it
would suspend new coal leasing on federal lands, some perceive the seeds of a
broader attack on all fossil fuels.
On Jan. 15, Interior Secretary Sally
Jewell said DOI was launching a comprehensive review to identify and evaluate potential reforms to its federal coal program
"to ensure that it is properly structured to
provide a fair return to taxpayers and reflects its impacts on the environment."
While that review in being conducted, she
added, DOI will cease issuing new coal
leases.
"This is another step along the path that
President Obama announced in Tuesday's State of the Union Address to improve the way we manage our fossil fuel
resources and move the country toward a
clean energy economy," Jewell said.
In his Jan. 12 address to Congress and
the nation, President Obama vowed to "accelerate the transition away from old,
dirtier energy sources" and to "push to
change the way we manage our oil and
coal resources so that they better reflect the
costs they impose on taxpayers and our
planet."
In her announcement, Secretary Jewell said pending coal leases that already had
completed an environmental analysis and
had received a final record of decision or
decision order under existing regulations
would be allowed to complete the final procedural process and secure a lease or lease
modification. She added that coal reserves already under lease were "estimated to be enough to sustain current levels
of production from federal land for approximately 20 years."
Jewell also said DOI was undertaking
a "series of good government reforms to
improve transparency and administration
of the federal coal program. These reforms
include establishing a publicly available
database to account for the carbon emitted from fossil fuels developed on public
lands."
More To Come?
Coal may be only the first target in the
administration's sights, worries the Institute for Energy Research. "This attack on
affordable energy doesn't end with coal,"
warns IER President Thomas Pyle. "The
administration will use this announcement
as a springboard to halt oil and natural gas
leasing, all in an effort to make his favored

108 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

energy sources the 'preferred' energy
sources.
"The president is perfectly content to
destroy the livelihoods of anyone who
doesn't subscribe to his ideology or share
his values," Pyle adds.
National Mining Association President and Chief Executive Officer Hal
Quinn says DOI's announcement "defies
credulity" and calls it "another front in (the
Obama administration's) 'beyond jobs
campaign.'"
Quinn says, "The coal supply being cut
off by today's action has been the source
of the lowest cost and most reliable electricity keeping America's lights on and
people working. Apparently, coal's resilience poses a threat to the administration's policies to move America away from
affordable, reliable and secure energy.
"Under the guise of a listening tour last
summer, administration officials came, sat,
but never listened to the facts that every ton
of coal produced from federal lands pays
more than its fair share through bonus bids
and above-market royalty rates," he relates.
"Instead, they heed the directives of their
political benefactors who, to borrow a
phrase from the president, are peddling fiction."
"Pausing the public lands leasing program for coal, which supplies nearly 40
percent of U.S. electricity, denies reality,"
puts in American Petroleum Institute
President and CEO Jack Gerard. "We need
more supplies of all types of energy if we
are to sustain our economy and provide affordable energy to U.S. businesses and
consumers. The administration has adopted the view of extremists with a leave-itin-the-ground agenda, with consumers
suffering the consequences."
That is especially true in the West, suggests U.S. Senator John Barrasso, R-Wy.
"There seems to be no limit to the number of job-crushing regulations, executive
orders and insults Secretary Jewell and
President Obama will throw at America's
middle class," he responds. "A moratorium on federal coal leasing effectively
hands a pink slip to the thousands of people in Wyoming and across the West employed in coal production."
Published reports indicate about 40 percent of U.S. coal is mined on federal lands,
with a majority of that coming from the
Powder River Basin in Montana and
Wyoming.
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - March 2016

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