Regulation and Reclamation of Coal Mining: Select Issues and Legislation

Regulation and Reclamation of Coal Mining: Select Issues and Legislation. Congressional Research Service. Lance N. Larson. November 17, 2020.

In the United States, coal mining operations supported economic growth and electrical power generation needs throughout the 20th century. Prior to the enactment of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) in 1977, no federal law had authorized reclamation requirements for coal mining operators to restore lands and waters affected by mining practices. Title V of SMCRA authorized a federal regulatory program for coal mine operations after 1977. SMCRA also established the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE), within the Department of the Interior, as the federal agency responsible for implementing the requirements of SMCRA.

[PDF format, 21 pages].

The U.S. Coal Sector: Recent and Continuing Challenges

The U.S. Coal Sector: Recent and Continuing Challenges. Brookings Institution. Howard Gruenspecht. January 2019

The 40 percent decline in U.S. coal-fired power generation over the last decade accounted for 75 percent of the total reduction of 800 million metric tons in U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions between 2005 and 2017. The shift away from coal was mainly driven by lower natural gas prices due to the shale revolution and stagnant U.S. electricity demand, and to a lesser extent by policy-supported growth in wind and solar generation. With power generation accounting for over 90 percent of U.S. coal use, there was a comparable reduction in U.S. coal production over the last decade. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

[PDF format, 25 pages].

Federal Minerals Leasing Reform and Climate Policy

Federal Minerals Leasing Reform and Climate Policy. Brookings Institution. James Stock and Kenneth Gillingham. December 8, 2016

Through its minerals leasing program, the U.S. government plays a large role in the extraction of oil, natural gas, and coal. This footprint is the largest for coal: 41 percent of U.S. coal is mined under federal leases, and burning this coal accounts for 13 percent of U.S. energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Currently, producers and consumers of this coal do not bear the full social costs associated with its use. At the same time, the threat of climate change has led the international community, including the United States, to pledge significant reductions in CO2 emissions. Over the past two decades Democratic and Republican administrations have taken steps to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions by reducing use of fossil fuels. Despite growing public attention to the climate consequences of fossil fuel extraction, U.S. climate policy so far has not extended to the government’s role as a major source of fossil fuels. In a new paper from The Hamilton Project and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago, Kenneth Gillingham and James Stock propose to incorporate climate considerations into federal coal leasing by placing a royalty adder on federal coal that is linked to the climate damages from its combustion. The magnitude of the royalty adder should be chosen to recognize both the substitution of nonfederal for federal coal, and the interaction of the royalty adder with other climate policies. A royalty adder set to 20 percent of the social cost of carbon would reduce total power sector emissions, raise the price of federal coal to align with coal mined on private land, increase coal mining employment in Appalachia and the Midwest, and provide additional government revenues to help coal communities. This proposal strikes a middle path between calling for a stop to all federal fossil fuel leasing on the one hand, and relying entirely on imperfect downstream regulation on the other. [Note: contains copyrighted material].

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