Arch Coal is poised for big breaks in Colorado, even as this giant coal company is sliding toward failure and facing an increasingly uncertain future.
The latest handout comes from the U.S. Forest Service, which last week finalized a plan to give Arch and other coal companies a special “exemption” to mine into Colorado’s backcountry.
There’s no beating around the bush on this. The plan expressly sacrifices publicly owned wild forest lands (that means owned by all Americans) purely for Arch Coal’s financial benefit. It’s a sad giveaway, especially given that these untrammeled wild places are truly one of a kind and really reflect what makes Colorado so special.
Like the Sunset Roadless Area, which skirts the iconic West Elk Wilderness. Although WildEarth Guardians has been able to keep this area safe from Arch’s coal mining, the Forest Service’s giveaway ensures its destruction.
And as if the public lands giveaway wasn’t enough for Arch, the company’s also poised to get a break on its royalty payments.
Royalties of course, are what Arch pays you and me for the privilege of mining publicly owned coal. Under the company’s latest request, the federal government would lose $3.1 million while Colorado would lose $1.75 million.
To boot, the request comes as Arch recently raised its CEO’s salary by 58%. So not only are we losing money, we’re subsidizing a CEO pay increase.
Yet, in spite of these handsome handouts, Arch’s profits are still sliding downward. Tumbling is how it was described in The Wall Street Journal. And to top it all off, the coal giant was just stung by a Standard and Poor’s downgrade, from B+ to BB-.
The reason? Declining demand for coal.
All the bailouts in the world can’t cover up the fact that coal is dying. As Arch continues to tumble toward failure, one can only hope that these latest welfare payments in Colorado–our public lands and our public revenues–amount to nothing in the end.
The thought of subsidizing a giant coal company’s profits is bad enough. But the thought of footing the bill for a coal company’s failure is outrageous.
Adding insult to injury, Arch Coal vents more than $10 million worth of methane gas into the air every year from dozens of wells drilled above its West Elk coal mine in Colorado. Arch has so far thwarted efforts to require the company to capture and utilize the gas.
