July 24, 2017 Mr. Scott Armentrout, Supervisor GMUG National Forest 2250 Highway 50 Delta, CO 81416 Via Email: [email protected] Via web: https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Public/CommentInput?Project=32459 Re: Comments of High Country Conservation Advocates et al. on the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement on Federal Coal Lease Modifications COC- 1362 & COC-67232 (Project #32459) Dear Supervisor Armentrout: Thank you for this opportunity to submit comments on the supplemental draft environmental impact statement (SDEIS) on the Forest Service’s proposal to consent to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) modifying Federal Coal Leases COC-1362 and COC-67232 by adding 800 and 920 acres, respectively, to those leases. The SDEIS also addresses the impacts of Arch Coal’s Sunset Trail Area Coal Exploration Plan within the Lease Modifications area. This letter is sent on behalf of five conservation groups, all of whom have a longstanding interest in the protection and wise stewardship of roadless national forest lands and our climate. Given the important roadless, wilderness, wildlife and other values at stake, and the climate impacts of allowing Arch Coal to bulldoze over 6 miles of roads in publicly owned backcountry forests so that it might profit from mining and burning 17.6 million tons of coal, we urge the Forest Service and BLM to reject Arch’s proposal, and instead adopt the “environmentally preferred alternative”: the No Action Alternative.1 For the reasons set forth below, the undersigned groups, among other things, urge the Forest Service to: - adopt the no action alternative, because the proposed action will degrade sensitive roadless lands and worsen climate change, hobble renewable energy generation, and result in millions if not billions of dollars of damage to the global environment and economy while likely benefitting only a single corporation: Arch Coal; - apply the peer-reviewed, robust social cost of carbon metric to disclose reasonably foreseeable coal mining and coal combustion impacts due to climate pollution, which the Forest Service mis-applied in its Colorado Roadless Rule Supplemental Final EIS; 1 U.S. Forest Service, Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement Federal Coal Lease Modifications COC-1362 & COC-67232 (June 2017) at 23, 630 (hereafter “Lease Modifications SDEIS”). ROCKY MOUNTAIN 633 17TH STREET, SUITE 1600 DENVER, CO 80202 T: 303.623.9466 F: 303.623.8083 [email protected] WWW.EARTHJUSTICE.ORG - correct any and all flaws in the analysis of the social costs of climate pollution contained November 2016 supplemental final environmental impact statement on the Colorado Roadless Rule coal mine exception (2016 Colorado Roadless Rule SFEIS), including: ○ failure to address the impacts of President Trump’s repudiation of the Clean Power Plan and the Paris Agreement; ○ failure to address the fact that lower-priced coal will induce additional coal consumption; - properly disclose the impacts of leasing and exploration on recreation resources; - properly disclose air quality impacts; - properly disclose the economic impacts; - properly disclose the direct, indirect and cumulative impacts on wildlife, including big game and threatened and endangered species; and - ensure that the proposal does not tier to an outdated forest plan. The undersigned groups submitting this letter include: High Country Conservation Advocates (HCCA), Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians, Center for Biological Diversity, and Grand Canyon Trust. HCCA was founded in 1977 as High Country Citizens’ Alliance, to keep Mount Emmons molybdenum mine-free. HCCA’s work now addresses other issues that affect Gunnison County’s clean air, clean water, public lands, and healthy wildlife. HCCA has about 900 members who live, recreate, and enjoy the rural and wild character of Gunnison County and its public lands. The Sierra Club is America’s largest grassroots environmental organization, with more than 3 million members and supporters nationwide, including more than 23,000 members in Colorado. Sierra Club is dedicated to exploring, enjoying, and protecting the wild places of the Earth; to practicing and promoting the responsible use of the Earth’s resources and ecosystems; to educating and enlisting humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment; and to using all lawful means to carry out these objectives. WildEarth Guardians is an American West-based nonprofit environmental advocacy organization with offices throughout the western U.S., including in Colorado. WildEarth Guardians is dedicated to protecting and restoring wild places, wildlife, wild rivers, and the health of the American West and has over 100,000 members. As part of its Climate and Energy Program, Guardians works to combat climate change by advancing clean energy and aiding a transition away from fossil fuels, the key source of the greenhouse gases fueling global warming, particularly on our public lands. In doing so, Guardians defends the public interest by safeguarding clean air, pure water, vibrant wildlife populations, and protected open spaces. 2 The Center for Biological Diversity is a non-profit environmental organization with over 48,500 members, many of whom live and recreate in western Colorado. The Center uses science, policy, and law to advocate for the conservation and recovery of species on the brink of extinction and the habitats they need to survive. The Center has and continues to actively advocate for increased protections for species and their habitats in Colorado. The Grand Canyon Trust is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring the spectacular landscapes, flowing rivers, clean air, diversity of plants and animals, and areas of beauty and solitude on the Colorado Plateau and the Colorado River watershed. The Trust represents 3,000 individual members throughout the U.S., including members in Colorado, some of whom recreate, photograph, study, and otherwise use the Gunnison National Forest and the West Elk Wilderness. Furthermore, Grand Canyon Trust members have a direct interest in the management and conservation of sustainable human uses and the native plants, animals, and habitats of the Gunnison National Forest. I. THE FOREST SERVICE SHOULD ADOPT THE NO ACTION ALTERNATIVE. We urge the Forest Service to reject the proposed lease modifications and exploration plan. The Lease Modifications would provide Arch Coal with access to more than 17.6 million tons of publicly- and privately-owned coal; cause millions of dollars in climate-related economic damages; suppress production of clean, renewable energy; and degrade and fragment more than a thousand acres of wild forest directly adjacent to the West Elk Wilderness. It would do so all to assist a single entity, Arch Coal, and it would do nothing to assist the transition, already ongoing in the North Fork Valley, away from coal. Because the Lease Modifications and exploration proposal will degrade roadless character, worsen climate change, and result in unnecessary and unmitigated methane pollution, with the only benefits flowing to a single coal company, both BLM and the Forest Service have ample basis to reject this lease application. Pursuant to the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 (MLA), a prerequisite to approving any coal lease modification is that the modification be in the “public interest” and the national interest. See 30 U.S.C. § 201(a)(1) (“The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to divide any lands subject to this chapter which have been classified for coal leasing into leasing tracts of such size as he finds appropriate and in the public interest ….” (emphasis added)); 30 U.S.C. § 203(a)(2)(A) (Interior Secretary may modify coal leases upon a finding that, inter alia, that the lease modifications “would be in the interest of the United States” (emphasis added); 43 C.F.R. § 3432.2(a) (“The authorized officer may modify the lease to include all or part of the lands applied for if he determines that: (1) The modification serves the interests of the United States ….” (emphasis added)).2 To the extent that the Forest Service believes that the Secretary is without discretion to modify or deny the lease applications, that belief is without legal foundation.3 2 The SDEIS asserts that the Interior Secretary’s public interest determination is a response to “specific language” and “specific criteria.” Lease Modifications SDEIS at 625 (“The public interest determination is made based on very specific language by the Secretary of the Interior.”); 3 The undersigned groups urge the Forest Service to adopt the no action alternative and to reject the Coal Lease Modifications. The Forest Service should not undermine the public interest or America’s national interest to benefit one of world’s largest purveyors of dirty coal. The Forest Service’s own analysis demonstrates the proposal’s damaging impacts, and that the Lease Modifications and exploration plan are neither in the public nor the national interest. First, the Lease Modifications will worsen climate change. Coal mined from the Lease Modifications will result in significant gross carbon emissions from coal extraction and combustion.4 Mining the Lease Modifications coal will result in a net increase in total CO2 and methane emissions as well.5 The SDEIS contains a catalogue of potential impacts likely to occur from climate change generally; recent reports compiling climate change studies make terrifyingly clear the costs of inaction.6 The SDEIS admits that humanity has a limited and rapidly closing window of opportunity to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, concluding that there is “medium confidence” that “[a]t current emissions rates the remaining carbon budget would be exhausted in approximately 23 years.”7 In short, actions such as the Lease Modifications that lock in more climate emissions in the future take us, unnecessarily, closer to the most damaging future for our health, our wealth, and our planet’s well-being. Worsening climate change is not only having impacts world-wide, it is also worsening conditions on the very national forest where mining will take place.