Washington, D.C. — David J. Hayes, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and former Deputy Secretary of the Interior, issued the following statement after the announcement of major reforms to coal development on federal lands:
We are making tremendous progress toward building a cleaner energy future and tackling climate change, but the federal coal program is frozen in time in the 1980s. The current rules, which were written when you could still smoke on airplanes and dump sewage in the ocean, neither deliver a fair return to taxpayers nor account for the pollution costs that result from coal mining. President Barack Obama and Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell are absolutely right to launch this comprehensive review and to set the federal coal program in a more fiscally and environmentally responsible direction.
Related resources:
Modernizing the Federal Coal Program by Nidhi Thakar
Cutting Subsidies and Closing Loopholes in the U.S. Department of Interior’s Coal Program by Matt Lee-Ashley and Nidhi Thakar
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, contact Tom Caiazza at [email protected] or 202.481.7141.