coal stocks to provide some of that and a lot of them are in this region of the powder river basin.and sentence federally owned the department of interior has a leasing process to give coal companies access to that coal so the way that they do that is it's a lease by application process so the coal companies basically nominate whatever land they want to say i want that you know several hundred thousand acres to mine the department of interior says ok we're going to hold an auction and the coal company bids and if it meets some hidden standard that the department of interior has set and they get the coal department the interior is charged with illegally they're obligated to charge fair market value but the way they develop fair market value is it's fraught with problems and so for decades taxpayers have been cheated of a fair return for this coal and the result of that is that coal companies have been able to sell coal cheaply and that's depress the price of coal and made it much lower than renewables so it's been very difficult to develop renewable energy at the scale which we need

never really been forced to innovate partly because of this lease in process in the powder river basinwhere they're given access to call it below market prices they have been forced to grapple with the extra costs of their pollution and so they have been forced to develop things like carbon capture storage and so we don't have those technologies ready to go coal is dirty from the way it treats its workers to the way it treats the a local environment and then of course to the global environment it's amazing that those aren't put in place already i mean you know environmentally sound things that at least could what you just said i mean it's just amazing that these safeguards aren't plays you recently traveled of course as you said to investigate the government cool subsidies and this is the part that is really shocking and i think why. talk about the subsidy program with the coal industry in these days in particular sure so it's helpful look at the history back in the one nine hundred seventy s. during the oil embargo the u.s. was sort of desperate for a source of domestic energy that co

coal stocks to provide some of that and a lot of them are in this region of the powder river basin.and sentence federally owned the department of the interior has a leasing process to give coal companies access to that coal so the way that they do that is it's a lease by application process so the coal companies basically nominate whatever land they want and say i want that you know several hundred thousand acres to mine the department of interior says ok we're going to hold an auction and the coal company bids and if it meets some hidden standard that the department of the interior has set and they get the coal the department the interior is charged with illegally they're obligated to charge fair market value but the way they develop their market value is it's fraught with problems and so for decades taxpayers have been cheated of a fair return for those coal and the results of that is that will companies have been able to sell coal cheaply and not depress the price of coal and made it much lower than renewables so it's been very difficult to develop renewable energy at the scale w

coal stocks to provide some of that and a lot of them are in this region of the powder river basin.and sentence federally owned the department of the interior has a leasing process to give coal companies access to that coal so the way that they do that is it's a lease by application process so the coal companies basically nominate whatever land they want and say i want that you know several hundred thousand acres to mine the department of interior says ok we're going to hold an auction and the coal company bids and if it meets some hidden standard that the department of interior has set and they get the coal department the interior is charged with illegally they're obligated to charge fair market value but the way they develop fair market value is it's fraught with problems and so for decades taxpayers have been cheated of a fair return for this coal and the result of that is that coal companies have been able to sell coal cheaply and depress the price of coal and made it much slower than renewables so it's been very difficult to develop renewable energy at the scale which we need i

coal stocks to provide some of that and a lot of them are in this region of the powder river basin.and sentence federally owned the department of interior has a leasing process to give coal companies access to that coal so the way that they do that as it's a lease by application process so the coal companies basically nominate whatever land they want and say i want that you know several hundred thousand acres to mine the department of interior says ok we're going to hold an auction and the coal company bids and if it meets some hidden standard that the department of the interior has set and they get the coal the department the interior is charged with illegally they're obligated to charge fair market value but the way they develop fair market value is it's fraught with problems and so for decades taxpayers have been cheated of a fair return for this coal and the result of that is that coal companies have been able to sell coal cheaply and depress the price of coal and made it much lower than renewables so it's been very difficult to develop renewable energy at the scale which we nee

the powder river basin in wyoming and montana through montana through idaho.and into washington oregon and to ports on the west coast of oregon and washington to go to china japan and india and there are three terminals that have been proposed to be built and if they are built and they are operating at full capacity the amount of coal traveling through would be as much carbon pollution once it's burned as the keystone pipeline amazin your article also talks of the massive land grab in the environmental destruction that's already leaked these areas a lab around what you saw on the ground firsthand during your investigation sure so the powder river basin is a huge area of wyoming and montana and it holds about forty percent of the nation's coal reserves it's the largest single source contributor to climate change and most of that coal is federally owned so the department of interior controls that leasing process and they've been leasing this coal for decades to big coal companies who have opened up large strip mines all across the region mostly in wyoming around

i am from the communities of the navajo nation to the powder river basin and to my home in central appalachia who live in the wake of the extraction process can attest that coal, from cradle to grave, is harmful to public health. i am from southern west virginia, and i have been around coal my entire life. and we need to talk realistically about the human health impact of carbon pollution, not just its contribution to climate change. as a west virginia yang, i support epa's efforts and believe me that there are many more in appalachia who do as well. i feel that you cannot realistically talk about emissions without discussing the extraction, because they are indeed linked. by regulating the amount of coal power pollution that is produced by plants, you are also helping the communities where the coal industry on a daily basis rip coal from the ground and blow up entire mountains. let's call it what it is, coal pollution. whether you're living with a coal-fired power plant in your backyard or a mountaintop removal mine site over your community, you and your neighbors are getting sick because of