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Day two of David Pecker testimony wraps in NY Trump trial; Supreme Court hears arguments on Idaho's near-total abortion ban; ND sees a flurry of campaigning among Native candidates; and NH lags behind other states in restricting firearms at polling sites.

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The Senate moves forward with a foreign aid package. A North Carolina judge overturns an aged law penalizing released felons. And child protection groups call a Texas immigration policy traumatic for kids.

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The urban-rural death divide is widening for working-age Americans, many home internet connections established for rural students during COVID have been broken and a new federal rule aims to put the "public" back in public lands.

Report: Coal Mining Accounts for 11% of Greenhouse Gas

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Friday, January 13, 2017   

INDIANAPOLIS – A new report acknowledges that coal mined on public land accounts for 11 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

A year ago, the Obama administration halted new leases for coal mining on public land as it conducted a review of the leasing program.

According Jenny Harbine, staff attorney for the environmental advocacy legal group Earthjustice, the preliminary report released Wednesday by the Bureau of Land Management calls for modernization of the leasing program, and states that "climate-change impacts touch nearly every aspect of public welfare."

"The report really underscores the imperative to stop burning coal and transition to clean, renewable energies to prevent an environmental and an economic climate change catastrophe," Harbine states.

Federal coal leases account for about 40 percent of all coal mined in the United States.

Most federal coal is in western states, but Harbine points out that the findings have implications for all coal mining wherever it is taking place.

"The report demonstrates the urgency in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal mining and burning of coal and also the inconsistency of mining coal with the U.S.'s climate change commitments," she stresses.

The moratorium on new federal coal leases is still in effect.

Harbine points out that, while the incoming Trump administration in Washington, D.C., may have a different opinion on global climate change, that doesn't change the validity of the report.

"These are the facts and we expect the next administration to heed them,” she states. “And if they don't, we'll see them in court."




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