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Show Wesflem Kesourees WRAP-UP.;. Federal coal leasing, part II By Helene C. Monberg Washington "Just so it's clear, tiing in the.. .law said to the (In-or) (In-or) Department lease some more ?T' on federal land. "That direction 5 not in the act," Sen. John Melcher, ilont., told Interior Department trials recently. iterior's present leasing target for first area designated for a federal Ptl lease sale in January 1981 in the ty-en River-Hams Fork area of North-cptern North-cptern Colorado and south-central gtorhing. 520 million tons "may be lerstated by 1.2 billion tons," ac-ding ac-ding to the General Accounting Jce (GAO). i hese two statements illustrate the win position of the Interior oartment as it presses forward with ,s;new federal coal leasing program in West. To Melcher, who chaired an rsight hearing on the program in a sate Energy Subcommittee on June 85 it appears Interior is hell-bent to 1se more federal coal than it can le in his lifetime or even that of his ;,;ndchildren. Environmental groups l6') feel Interior is attempting to lease vmuch coal too soon. But the GAO, l)seral other federal agencies and jjustry are concerned that Interior is j,' blocking out enough coal to lease on nigral lands in the West. nls- K: END OF MORATORIUM ''iterior Secretary Cecil D. andrus ablished a new federal coal leasing gram in June 1979 when he an-mced an-mced that the current moratorium federal coal leasing would be lifted -Jh the first lease sale in January 1981 Green River-Hams Fork. The ratorium has been in effect since 1. For the first three lease sales on eral coal lands in the West, Interior set an overall target of 1,618,000,000 s for leasing as follows: Green er-Hams Fork, 520 million; Uintah-" Uintah-" thwestern Utah-Western Colorado, million; Powder River in eastern ntana and northeastern Wyoming, million. oth Melcher and the witness ex-I ex-I ssed general satisfaction with the I s upon which Interior is con-jcting con-jcting its federal coal leasing I gram. But Melcher had some ited criticism too. He told Interior istant Secretarey Guy R. Marttin other Interior officials at the June versight hearing, "Nothing in the indments to the Mineral Leasing or in the Federal Land Policy and lagement Act of 1976 said to the I artment lease some more' coal. t direction was not in the act. We do I whether or not they reach a stage 1 ire they lease some more coal is a ment the executive branch should le properly. I am a little bit con-I con-I led you might have too broad an roach to this without really getting where the coal is needed when it is j ded." The Interior program in-I in-I les federal coal leasing as an aspect ederal land planning; it is not a arate program, as such, and in-I in-I try no longer nominates tracts, as in I past. I ielcher continues, "I am very ap- nensive about this whole process, j gress may be guilty of a little bit of j rkill in telling them (Interior) to do of this very involved plannning" r to leasing federal coal lands. "We talking about billions of tons of coal ch aren't going to be mined in my ime and maybe not in my dren's or grandchildern's. So do we e to make all of these decisions now, how good are these decisions going ?" Melcher indicated he had not n swamped with demands for ;ral coal leases, even tho he resents the Montana portion of der River Basin, which contains largest coal seams in the world. "I 't know who is going to mine it." Icher told the Departmental wit-ses. wit-ses. here were few witnesses at the rings which were held by Interior tis on the draft environmental act statement (EIS) on June 23-24 'enver and Craig, Colo., on the first ! of federal coal leases in January, those who did testify questioned ther Interior has enough data or the ect data to lease. Catherine Haug, environmentlaist representing Uife groups but speaking for herself the Denver meeting, raised the icism that this Wester Resources ip-up (WRW) correspondent has rd most often against the federal I leasing program. The accelerated 5dule for leasing has created the sssity for shortcuts in application of federal coal management plan," Haug warned. With such a lengthy ining process and with such a short e to meet the leasing deadline, Ms. ig predicted that leasing would win even tho data on wildlife habitats in Green River-Hams Fork area and other key environmental factors e incomplete. Craig Wreaver of den, Colo., complained at the Craig !ting that date on air quality in thwestern Colorado was wrong in draft EIS. Ms. Louise Miller of ig complained about the inac-Jcies inac-Jcies in federal reports, including ips that were absolutely inac-ate... inac-ate... pipelines going where nines didn't go; roads going where fe didn't go; sagebrush land where there is irrigated. aPricu'tural lands; forests where there is sagebrush," In sum, they felt the first lease sale was premature. SHORTFALL IN FEDERAL COAL LEASING? But GAO and several other federal agencies worry about a significant shortfall in the federal coal leasing program relative to meeting national energy goals. A draft report by GAO which has been made available to WRW indicates Interior's leasing target for the Green River-Hams Fork lease sale in January of 520 million tons "may be understated by 1.2 billion tons," and mayby more, according to Department of Energy (DOE) projections. "The Departments of Energy and Justice and the Council on Wage and Price Stability are concerned that sufficient coal be leased to foster healthy price competition and discourage anti-competitive pricing," GAO said. It indicated it shared their concern. And more. Altho the federal coal leasing program is estimated to cost $100 million for the period 1978-88, Interior witnesses told the oversight hearing, and altho it was presumed that Interior would lift its leasing moratorium in the 1980's as the federal government owns 60 percent of Western coal reserved, the draft GAO report indicates Interior does not have proper data to implement the new federal coal leasing program. The early date for the Green River-Hams Fork sale makes it impossible for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to delineate lease tracts "without the need for considerable con-siderable additional field work and drilling," GAO said. The Bureau of Land Managment (BLM) does not have enough information to apply un-suitability un-suitability criteria during its land use planning process, GAO found. "For example, for some of the tracts in Green River-Hams Fork BLM has insufficient information to determine if some areas should be precluded from leasing consideration due to wildlife concerns, flood plains, alluvial valley floors and historical sites, and it has designated the tracts as suitable pending acquisition of more data and futher analysis," the GAO draft report observed. Interior seeks wide public participation par-ticipation in the coal leasing program on federal lands, "but it does not formally for-mally request expression of leasing interest from the industry," GAO observed. ob-served. As a result, no effort has been made by Interior to select tracts for leasing on the basis of industry interest or industry data, it said. Furthermore, GAO charged in its draft report, that Interior has assumed that the Cherokee mine in Carbon County, Wyo., would be in full production by 1987, even tho it has been repeatedly told by industry "that the mine will not be operating at full capacity by that time," This false assumption will contribute to a leasing shortfall at Green River-Hames Fork, as will several other questionable Interior In-terior assumptions, GAO maintained. They included assuming mine production six years after leases are issued, tho nine years "would seem more realistic," GAO said ; longer mine life and coal recovery ratios "which do not agree" with more up-to-date estimates being used by USGS, and failure to include a margin-of-error factor in USGS's coal reserve estimates. The GAO report in draft form contained con-tained a sense of alarm about the paucity of data on which the 1981 lease sale is planned and concern about repeated breakdowns in communications com-munications between Interior and the U.S. Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, BLM and USGS within Interior, and between Interior and DOE. It indicated a shortfall is inevitable in the 1981 Green River-Hams Fork lease sale, so Interior In-terior should "initiate immediate plans for a follow-on sale possible in 1982--to meet the region's projected coal demand," GAO recommended. In the future, it said Interior must "improve its target-setting process" by working more closely with DOE thru the joing Leasing Liaison Committee and seek out expressions of interest, in industry in federal coal tracts it wants to lease early in the planning process. |