Even With the Clean Power Plan, Federal Policies Still Favor Coal

Matt Lee-Ashley writes that taxpayers deserve a fair share from coal mining on public lands.

With the release of the Clean Power Plan earlier this week (Monday, Aug. 3), the U.S. took a landmark step toward leveling the playing field among renewable and fossil fuel energy sources that will be powering our homes and businesses for decades to come. Wind and solar energy, for example, will now be allowed to compete more fairly with coal, whose high external costs – including carbon pollution, respiratory illness and premature deaths – have long been overlooked or ignored.

Yet, even with the Clean Power Plan in place, little-known federal policies and subsidies at the Department of the Interior will continue to tilt U.S. energy markets in favor of coal.

Forty percent of U.S. coal is mined on national forests and other public lands owned by American taxpayers, 90 percent of which is dug from sprawling strip mines in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana.

The above excerpt was originally published in InsideSources. Click here to view the full article.

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