 Tell BLM: Stop Thursday's multi-billion dollar, dirty coal giveaway. Dear Daniel, As climate change bears down on us, you'd expect our government to cut back on burning our dirtiest fuels, like coal. Instead, we're just giving it away to coal companies. On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plans to give Peabody Energy the rights to 721 million tons of publicly owned Wyoming coal for about $1 a ton,1 just so Peabody can sell it in Asia for $80 a ton, unleashing a massive amount of climate-change causing carbon pollution in the process. Coal companies get a huge windfall, the U.S. government gets a pittance in revenue, and climate change gets worse for all of us.2 Yet unbelievably, this lose-lose scenario is standard operating procedure for BLM. That needs to change. Tell the Bureau of Land Management: Stop the dirty coal giveaways and stop subsidizing climate change. Click here to automatically sign the petition. BLM's coal leasing decisions are supposed to be made "in the best interests of the nation,"3 but fueling climate change by heavily subsidizing dirty coal that will be sold to China isn't in anyone's interests. Sadly, the BLM has been doing this for decades, turning a blind eye to the fact that it is making dirty coal artificially cheap, skewing domestic and international energy markets in favor of energy sources that heat the globe and make people everywhere sick.4 The federal coal leasing program has been coming under increasing scrutiny for its role in fueling global climate change and its failure to serve the best interests of the American people.5 Now it's time to turn up the pressure. Tell the Bureau of Land Management: Stop the dirty coal giveaways and stop subsidizing climate change. Click here to automatically sign the petition. Realizing that dirty coal use in the U.S. is in a steep and permanent decline,6 big coal companies want to build massive coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest for shipping American coal to Asia, where environmental rules aren't as strict. Grassroots activists in the Pacific Northwest have blocked the proposed coal terminals so far, persuading dozens of elected officials and cities to oppose the projects,7 but the BLM's shameful dirty coal giveaways are tipping the scale in favor of big coal. If the BLM truly wants to do what is in the "best interests of the nation," it will put an immediate moratorium on coal leasing and undertake a comprehensive review of the federal coal leasing program's role in contributing to climate change. Click the link below to automatically sign the petition telling the Bureau of Land Management that fueling climate change is not in the best interests of the United States:
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6902637&p=blm_climate_change&id=42232-2914033-fDhNISx&t=10 Thank you for being a part of the fight against dirty coal. Josh Nelson, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets 1. The BLM's Corrupt Coal Leasing Program: Billions In Subsidies To Peabody, Gigatons Of Carbon Pollution For The Rest Of Us, Think Progress, 6/22/12
2. Why are U.S. taxpayers subsidizing coal mining?, Grist, 5/7/12
3. Federal Coal Leasing, Bureau of Land Management
4. How the U.S. could influence China's coal habits — with exports, Washington Post, 5/1/12
5. Letter from Rep. Ed Markey to U.S. Government Accountability Office, Office of Rep. Ed Markey, 4/24/12
6. The rage of a dying dinosaur: coal declines in United States, Daily Kos, 6/21/12
7. Statements, Letters and Resolutions, Power Past Coal | 
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