Powder River Basin

choi

Eric Lipton and Barry Meier, Trump Unravels Coal Mine Limits on Federal Land; Shift from Obama era; A flailing industry gets the upper hand as divisions deepen. New York Times, Aug 7, 2017 (front-page top report).
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/ ... fe-on-us-lands.html

Quote:

"The Trump administration is wading into one of the oldest and most contentious debates in the West by encouraging more coal mining on lands owned by the federal government. * * * The intervention has roiled conservationists and many Democrats, exposing deep divisions about how best to manage the 643 million acres of federally owned land — most of which is in the West — an area more than six times the size of California.

"Clouds of dust blew across the horizon one recent summer evening as a crane taller than the Statue of Liberty ripped apart walls of a canyon dug deep into the public lands here in the Powder River Basin, the nation’s most productive coal mining region.

US Department of Interior "oversees the national park system, as well as the Bureau of Land Management, which controls 250 million acres nationwide, parts of which are used to produce oil, gas, coal, lumber and hay.

"During President Barack Obama's second term, the coal industry's chief antagonist was Sally Jewell, a former oil industry engineer appointed Interior secretary in 2013 [2013-2017]. Ms. Jewell, an avid hiker, had also served as chief executive of the outdoor gear company REI. * * * A central problem, she said, was the lack of competitive bidding for mining leases: Only 11 of the 107 sales of federal coal leases between 1990 and 2012 received more than one bid, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. * * * Another hot-button issue was how much to charge in royalties, which generate about $1 billion a year for the federal government.  Under federal rules adopted in 1920, coal companies are required to pay 'not less than' 12.5 percent on sales of surface coal mined on federal lands. But for years, studies indicate, the companies paid far less — as little as 2.5 percent of the ultimate sale price — because they often negotiated large royalty discounts with sympathetic federal officials. Companies also often sell coal first to a corporate affiliate at a sharply reduced price, before reselling it to the intended customer, costing the government a chunk of its royalties, according to the Government Accountability Office study.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest of text, but do view the 2010-2017 graphic headlined "Western Coal[:] The majority of United States coal is produced in the West, with a small share of it then exported. About 85 percent of coal extracted from federal lands comes from the Powder River Basin, in Wyoming and Montana. * * *
(b) Powder River (Wyoming and Montana)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_River_(Wyoming_and_Montana)
("a tributary of the Yellowstone River [click to see where Powder River relative to Yellowstone River] * * * The Powder River was so named (in the English language as well as in local indigenous languages) because the sand along a portion of its banks resembles powder or dust")

Yellowstone River empties into Missouri River.
(c) REI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REI
(full name: Recreational Equipment, Inc; Lloyd and Mary Anderson founded REI in Seattle, Washington, in 1938)