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Train cars of Montana coal headed for markets.
(Mark Trahant photo)
What if the United States bought all of the coal reserves owned by American Indian tribes, Alaska Native village corporations, and individuals?
This is Trahant Reports.
What if? Two words that ought to be the every day language in politics. What if we imagined?
I have been thinking a lot of “what ifs?” when it comes to coal. Coal is a paradox for several Native American communities. The United Nations says that nearly 90 percent of proven coal reserves are “unburnable” and should be left in the ground.
But historically the industry has created good paying jobs and now it’s in sharp decline (Mostly because of market forces, the availability of inexpensive natural gas).
Yet stakeholders — workers and even a few tribes — blame the government for too many regulations. And, on the flip side, many of those working to change the energy paradigm demand that coal be left in the ground without thinking through the consequences to families who earn their living digging or shipping coal or even to the governments who rely on the revenue.
That’s where we begin the “what if?” thinking.
What if we could leave coal in the ground? What if we could still pay tribes for that resource and workers could benefit from the inevitable transition?
Turns out there is a solution that does both. Stephen Kass, a New York attorney who works on climate issues, suggested in the Washington Post last week that the United States buy the entire coal industry and shut it down. He said that solution would be cheaper than continued fights over coal regulation and the eventual costs associated with climate change.
This is the perfect time to buy the entire coal industry. Many coal companies are in bankruptcy; and across the board, prices are low.
Some thirty tribes have coal resources, totaling at least one third of Western coal, on lands from Arizona to Alaska. So the United States should pay the tribes with coal assets a significant sum to not mine their resource.
Montana’s Crow Tribe has a reserve of at least 9 billion tons of coal. And, in making the case for coal, Crow Tribal Chairman Darrin Old Coyote told InsideEnergy: “I don’t want to be dependent on the U.S. government. We have the resources … There’s no reason why we should be this poor.”
What if that resources were purchased? True, the cost of any buy-out would be enormous. Unless the accounting included the even more massive costs associated with climate change. Then the purchase of coal to not mine should be considered as an investment not a cost.
There is precedent for paying to take coal out of production. Farmers and ranchers are paid to not farm and ranch in order for the land to recover. This would be the same. Tribes (and individual landowners) would be compensated for their resource and the coal would stay in the ground.
The international goal of reducing greenhouse gasses requires significant changes in energy policy. We need to rethink the energy paradigm across the board from oil and gas production to what it will take to jump start more green energy sources. And all of the changes ahead will be tough politically. So what if we start that effort with a win-win-win? A win for coal owners, including tribes. A win for workers. And, a win for the environment. This is how we leave coal in the ground.
I am Mark Trahant reporting.
