Year: 1983
Type: article
Abstract: Planning a Market for Federal Coal LeasingThe federal government owns 60 percent of the coal in the United States west of the Mississippi River.Furthermore, federal and nonfederal coal are often so intermingled in railroad checkerboard and many other areas that they must be developed jointly.As a result, the federal government also controls indirectly another 20 percent of western coal development.Although western coal represented only a small part of total U.S. coal production until recently, its share climbed rapidly in the 1970s, reaching 30 percent of U.S. production in 1981.Federal coal production-almost all in the West-has grown correspondingly: in Fiscal 1982, it equaled 104 million tons, 13 percent of U.S. production. 1 Prior to the 1970s, little attention was paid to western coal.But as it became apparent that western coal would soon be supplying a major share of U.S. coal ouput, a fierce battle erupted for control over its development.Several major lawsuits--one of which reached the Supreme Court-were filed by environmental organizations opposing federal coal development or seeking major changes in its management.Indeed, the stalemate in federal coal policy proved so difficult to resolve that most federal leasing was effectively suspended from May 1971 to January 1981.While many policy issues were debated during this period, the greatest controversy concerned the appropriate role of market forces in shaping the development of federal coal resources.2 A Market SolutionIn the private coal market, the pressures of competition tend to promote development of lower cost deposits ahead of higher cost deposits.IDespite *The authors are members of the Economics Staff, Office of Policy Analysis, U.S.
Authors: Donald J. Bieniewicz, Robert H. Nelson
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W59387508