Responding to U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s massive changes to the federal coal program, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) said last week that the Obama administration’s freeze on new coal leases is “shameful.” 

“The endless assault by the Obama administration on domestic coal is unprecedented and puts the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk,” Gosar said. “The president’s reckless obsession to enact his radical environmental agenda clashes with scientific facts as well as the reality of the economic consequences his disastrous proposals are having on the country.”

Jewell has ordered a pause for new coal lease authorizations for at least a three-year period in order for the Department of the Interior to undertake a thorough review.

Calling the executive decision “a bureaucratic nightmare,”  Gosar said the halt in production would substantially impair the energy sector’s economic health and preclude coal production on federal lands - including tribal territories

“If implemented, this fundamentally flawed new regulation will kill jobs, result in an unconstitutional tax on coal and bankrupt even more American energy companies,” Gosar said. “Clearly, ‘an all-of-the-above approach’ was just a nice talking point pollsters told the president to use, as today’s announcement picks winners and losers, and continues the administration’s misguided war on coal.”