Under cloak of the climate change threat, President Joe Biden ordered an indefinite pause on new oil and natural gas leasing on federal public lands, stoking outrage from Utah and Western leaders, a lawsuit and praise from environmental groups opposed to fossil fuel development.
Located adjacent to the scenic Wind River
and framed by the wild Wind River Mountains
to the south, the timeless cowboy town of
Dubois, Wyoming is rich in history. More Posted April 04, 2021 They [Northern Plains] confound the common view that ordinary people are powerless in the face of industry. - Billings Gazette editorial
The venerable Northern Plains Resource Council, a Montana group that has fought coal plant pollution for 40 years and defended ranchers against. More Posted March 22, 2021 High Country News, an award-winning media organization covering the communities and environment of the Western United States, seeks an Office and Facilities Manager to join our business administration team during an exciting chapter of innovation and growth. High Country News is part of a growing.
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February 1, 2021
In this issue, we focus on some of the ways the ongoing transition away from coal will be felt across the West. Our feature story profiles Diné activist Nicole Horseherder and her long quest for an equitable energy economy on the Navajo Nation. A half-century ago, what law professor and scholar Charles Wilkinson dubbed the “Big Buildup” transformed the West’s energy economy; now, it’s coming to an end in the “Big Breakdown.” We talk to some of the workers at the Boardman coal-fired plant in Oregon, as it shutters. Elsewhere, in Wyoming, we look at how communities are turning to wind power to make ends meet as they figure out how to get by in a future less dependent on fossil fuels. In other news, we look at how Western tribes are taking over land-management responsibilities at places like Montana’s National Bison Refuge. And we examine the disturbing links between the attempted coup in Washington, D.C., and the r
| Updated: Feb. 11, 2021, 7:46 p.m.
Coal remains king in Utah’s Emery County despite bankruptcies, shrinking demand and obstacles shipping it overseas.
The Bureau of Land Management quietly signed off on a plan to expand a Utah coal producer’s federal lease by 7.2 million tons, adding two or three years of additional production from Emery County’s Lila Canyon mine. But at the same time it shelved a proposal to issue a much larger lease to the mine’s operator, the reorganized Murray Energy Corp., which recently emerged from bankruptcy with a new name and corporate structure.
Even as mines shutter all over the United States in the face of declining demand for coal in the power sector, Lila has steadily increased its output since it went into production about a decade ago, reaching 3.7 million tons in 2019.