10 Billion Tons of Coal Could Erase Obama's Progress on Climate Change

"Some 10.2 billion tons of coal, sitting on 106,00 acres of public land, have been authorized for sale by the Obama administration today [Friday, May 29, 2015]. The Department of the Interior has released its Regional Management Plan for the Wyoming Powder River Basin, and in terms of the climate, it's ugly news. The region is home to the nation's largest coal field, and these 28 new coal leases mean a trully massive stock of pure carbon is about to be mined, for cheap.

An analysis from Greenpeace notes that there are an estimated 16.9 billion metric tons of carbon pollution locked away in that coal field. According to their calculations, that's more than three times the global warming-causing carbon pollution than will be saved, in total, by the EPA's politically contentious Clean Power Plan through 2030.

In other words, if all that coal gets sold, it promises to roll back much of the hard-fought progress the Obama administration has made in its efforts to fight climate change. (As David Roberts notes at Vox, that Greenpeace chart isn't totally fair, as it doesn't count his CAFE or clean energy standards that have also reduced emissions, but the point stands.)"

Brian Merchant reports for Motherboard May 29, 2015.