USGS Designation Ignores Legislation, Teams Say Coal for Metal is Not Crucial

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Designating Metallurgical Coal as Crucial is a Handout to Overseas Rivals and Coal Barons

WASHINGTON, DC — At this time, the US Geological Survey (USGS) added metallurgical coal to an inventory of “essential minerals,” which might permit the Trump administration to steamroll bedrock environmental legal guidelines to spice up coke manufacturing and widen the devastation of coal mining.

The worth of metallurgical, or met, coal has been dropping as a result of market transferring in the direction of cleaner, extra productive strategies of constructing metal. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has dedicated to propping up the dying trade.

Sierra Membership joined greater than a dozen environmental and advocacy teams in signing a remark to USGS detailing why met coal doesn’t meet any of the standards to qualify as a essential mineral below the Power Act and is additional prohibited from being designated as a essential mineral due to its use as a gasoline.

The remark concludes:

“Prioritizing and doubtlessly subsidizing metallurgical coal, largely for export, straight undermines American manufacturing, competitiveness and innovation.”

Earlier this yr, at Trump’s urging, Congress designated metallurgical coal as a “essential” mineral in its “Massive, Ugly Invoice” and created new tax credit, a handout to coal executives that diverts taxpayer {dollars} from efforts to construct a contemporary, aggressive trade. That laws helped to kick-start this course of on the USGS, in addition to a separate endeavor on the Division of Power, which can enrich international steelmakers utilizing met coal and hurt US steelmakers.

In response, environmental and clear metal advocacy teams issued the next statements: 

Sierra Membership Industrial Marketing campaign Lead Harry Manin: “Metallurgical coal will not be essential. The overwhelming majority is exported to international steelmakers undercutting america. This new designation is an try by the Trump administration to unfairly and unwisely subsidize an outdated, soiled methodology of constructing metal. It’s a handout to coal barons who’re dropping market share to new strategies of constructing metal that use cleaner, extra fashionable and productive applied sciences. This can be a waste of taxpayer cash, undermines American innovation and manufacturing, and can devastate pristine out of doors locations and public well being.”

West Virginia Highlands Conservancy Program Director Olivia Miller: “For hundreds of years, the folks of Appalachia have paid the worth for coal with their well being, their land, and the prospect to construct a special type of future. Falsely designating metallurgical coal as a essential mineral solely ensures extra of the identical ache. Our communities deserve higher than one other handout to an trade that has taken a lot. It’s time to look ahead to clear vitality, good jobs, and a future that doesn’t come on the expense of our mountains or our folks.”

Industrious Labs’ Associate Evan Gillespie: “This designation offers coal executives the inexperienced gentle to bulldoze by environmental protections and ramp up manufacturing to satisfy international demand for coal-based metal. Whereas world rivals race towards cleaner steelmaking applied sciences, the U.S. is betting on the previous and propping up an trade the world is transferring past.”

Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance Workers Legal professional Andrew Younger: “Appalachia has borne the scars of mountaintop removing for generations, and this designation is the most recent excuse to plunder what’s left. The Trump administration is twisting the regulation to subsidize air pollution, undermine clear, aggressive metal innovation, and hold the area chained to an trade that has already stolen an excessive amount of from its folks and its land. Nobody in Appalachian coal producing states ought to must commerce clear water and wholesome mountains for company handouts to dying coal barons.”

Appalachian Voices Authorities Affairs Specialist Kevin Zedack: “At a time when Appalachians are feeling the actual time impacts of the federal authorities shutdown by dropping entry to their SNAP advantages and vitality help applications that assist them hold their warmth on this winter as utility charges skyrocket, the Trump administration has prioritized expediting metallurgical coal mining that can largely be shipped abroad for international metal manufacturing. Additional, exported coal doesn’t contribute to the black lung belief fund that pays for advantages to the miners doing the work. So once more we see enterprise pursuits being prioritized over our communities’ well being and wellbeing.”

Group In opposition to Smog & Air pollution Government Director Patrick Campbell: “Invoking the language of ‘essential’ nationwide safety want, the administration is making a loophole for polluters, paving the best way for expedited allowing, diminished environmental evaluation, and expanded federal assist for initiatives that can improve the devastating impression of coal mining. It’s outrageous that the Trump administration continues to provide a go to trade with no thought in regards to the myriad ways in which metallurgical coal and its manufacturing impression precise people dwelling subsequent to industrial amenities. Strikes like this simply undermine front-line residents in locations like southwestern Pennsylvania’s Mon Valley, who’ve lengthy been overburdened by industrial air pollution.”

Kentucky Sources Council Government Director Ashley Wilmes: “For many years, coal firms have dominated coverage decisions and formed total areas round extraction — leaving communities with polluted water, degraded land, and few actual financial pathways. As a substitute of making certain reclamation and a simply transition to a clear vitality financial system, this Administration is once more propping up the coal trade and placing company pursuits forward of the well being of our folks and setting.”

Earthjustice Motion Affiliate Legislative Consultant Cameron Walkup: “Even in the midst of the longest authorities shutdown in historical past, the Trump Administration can’t cease giving favors to polluting industries. By deeming controversial minerals like metallurgical coal, uranium, copper, and others as ‘essential minerals,’ USGS is ignoring primary economics, violating the regulation, and opening the door for federal businesses to shortly rubber-stamp giant polluting initiatives with inadequate guardrails in place to guard communities, ecosystems, and Indigenous sacred websites.”

Middle for Organic Range Legal professional Emma Yip: “The Trump administration’s bid to designate soiled coal as a essential mineral is totally out of contact with actuality and it’s flat-out unlawful. This boneheaded transfer is a loser economically, environmentally and legally. The regulation explicitly prohibits gasoline minerals from being labeled as essential, so that is simply one other suck as much as the fossil gasoline trade. After a number of coal lease gross sales flopped final month, you’d suppose Trump would cease clinging to a Gilded Age previous and hitching our nation’s destiny to a dying trade.”

In regards to the Sierra Membership

The Sierra Membership is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental group, with tens of millions of members and supporters. Along with defending each particular person’s proper to get outside and entry the therapeutic energy of nature, the Sierra Membership works to advertise clear vitality, safeguard the well being of our communities, defend wildlife, and protect our remaining wild locations by grassroots activism, public schooling, lobbying, and authorized motion. For extra info, go to www.sierraclub.org.