Critics said the Trump administration's contention that resuming sales would have negligible effects on the environment was absurd given the scope of the federal coal program. Companies have mined about 4 billion tons of coal from federal reserves in the past decade, contributing $10 billion to federal and state coffers through royalties and other payments. In Wednesday's report , the Bureau of Land Management analyzed applications from companies for coal leases totaling more than 2.5 billion tons of the fuel. The agency's conclusion was based on the assumption that coal sales would have resumed as normal once the moratorium ended in 2019. "The lifting of the coal leasing pause would not change the cumulative levels of (greenhouse gas) emissions resulting from coal leasing," officials wrote.

Source: Fox News May 22, 2019 21:40 UTC