The snow in Washington, D.C. can’t keep the Senate away: today, the Senate will begin debate on the Energy Modernization Act, also known as the bipartisan energy bill. Led by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (AK), the bill contains a number of truly bipartisan provisions, such as efforts to increase renewable energy development on public lands and to permanently reauthorize America’s best parks program, the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Yet, unsurprisingly, some senators who are bought and paid for by the coal industry see this as yet another opportunity to come marching in with top-down “solutions” to non-existent problems. In this case, it’s Senator Barrasso from Wyoming as well as Senators Hatch from Utah and Daines from Montana, as well, who plan to use this otherwise commonsense bill as a vehicle to oppose the recent coal leasing reforms announced by the Department of the Interior. Tell your Senator you don’t support efforts to block commonsense reforms.
The coal leasing reforms announced two weeks ago by Interior have strong support across the West—in fact, a recent poll found that over two-thirds of Americans support a targeted pause in the coal leasing program. They are also a necessary action to update an outdated, broken system that denies taxpayers an honest return on the extraction of public resources from public lands.
Not only is Interior’s plan to update the program a commonsense solution, it also comes with fiscal benefits for taxpayers. Updates to the program, including closing loopholes that allow coal companies to catch major breaks, could bring in upwards of $19 million in Montana and $126-$491 million in Wyoming in increased royalties revenue annually. That’s no small change for strapped state and local budgets, where it could mean free tuition for all university students in Wyoming or nearly 250 new firefighters in Montana.
What’s more, whether or not Senators Barrasso, Hatch and Daines personally like these reforms isn’t the issue—there’s a well-established, transparent process in place for them, and any other member of the American public, to help shape the reform by submitting public comments to the Department of the Interior. Yet these lone-acting senators would rather do the coal industry’s bidding and skirt the public process in favor of a top-down approach, by introducing an amendment that would severely undermine the reforms and poison the bipartisan nature of the bill.
As a democracy, this isn’t how we solve problems—tell your Senator to vote against any amendments that will undo the sensible coal reforms. Click here to contact your Senator.