DOI Issues Orders to Terminate Coal Leasing Moratorium and Environmental Review, Reconsider Climate Change Policies and Guidance

Date: March 29th, 2017

Explanation: Agency order

Agencies: DOI

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed two secretarial orders aimed at implementing President Trump’s Executive Order on Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.

Secretarial Order 3348 revokes Secretarial Order 3338, thus terminating the moratorium on federal coal leasing as well as the programmatic environmental review of the federal coal leasing program. The order states that “the public interest is not served by halting the federal coal program for an extended time, nor is a PEIS required to consider potential improvements to the program.”

Secretarial Order 3349 implements the Executive Order’s directive to “immediately review existing regulations that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources and appropriately suspend, revise, or rescind those that unduly burden the development of domestic energy resources beyond the degree necessary to protect the public interest or otherwise comply with the law.” It calls for a reexamination of the mitigation and climate change policies and guidance that the Department of Interior issued during the Obama administration, as well as all regulations related to U.S. oil and natural gas development. Specifically, Order 3349 provides that:

  • BLM will proceed expeditiously with a proposed rule to rescind the final rule entitled “Oil and Gas; Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal and Indian Lands,” 80 FR 16128 (March 26, 2015).
  • The National Park Service will review the final rule entitled “General Provisions and Non-Federal Oil and Gas Rights,” 81 FR 77972 (November 4, 2016);
  • The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will review the final rule entitled “Management of Non Federal Oil and Gas Rights,” 81 FR 79948 (November 14, 2016); and
  • The BLM will review the final rule entitled “Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation,” 81 FR 83008 (November 18, 2016).

In addition, Secretary Zinke also signed a charter establishing a Royalty Policy Committee to provide advice on the fair market value of federal coal and other energy resources on federal lands.

A press release announcing these actions is available here.

Immediately after the orders were issued, a coalition of environmental groups and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe filed a lawsuitchallenging the Department’s decision to reverse course and lift the moratorium without having completed the programmatic environmental review.

Secretarial Order 3338: Discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to Modernize the Federal Coal Program / Moratorium on Federal Coal Leasing 

This Secretarial Order directs the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to prepare a discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) that analyzes potential leasing and management reforms to the current Federal coal program, in order to help determine if the program should be modernized in a manner that gives proper consideration to the impact of that development on important stewardship values, while also ensuring a fair return to the American public. One key issue to be addressed in the PEIS is the effect of the coal leasing program on greenhouse gas emissions, including emissions from the production and consumption of federal coal, and how the leasing program should be updated to account for those impacts. BLM commenced the environmental review process in early 2016, and published a scoping document in January 2017 which outlines the key issues that will be considered in the PEIS.

DOI also announced a moratorium on federal coal leasing during the environmental review and modernization process.

Deregulatory Action: 

On March 28, 2017, President Trump issued an executive order directing DOI to “take all steps necessary and appropriate to amend or withdraw” Secretarial Order 3338, consistent with the President’s goals of promoting domestic energy production and revitalizing the coal industry. The order also directed DOI to “lift any and all moratoria on Federal land coal leasing activities related to Order 3338.”

On March 29, 2017, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke signed a secretarial order aimed at implementing the Executive Order. Secretarial Order 3348 revokes Secretarial Order 3338, thus terminating the moratorium on federal coal leasing as well as the programmatic environmental review of the federal coal leasing program.

Litigation: 

Immediately after the orders were issued, a coalition of environmental groups and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe filed a lawsuit challenging DOI’s decision to reverse course and lift the moratorium without having completed the programmatic environmental review.