States ask court to reconsider Signal Peak ruling

Montana and 15 other states have asked the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to take on a request to reconsider its ruling faulting the federal government's study of a lease modification for Signal Peak's Bull Mountains underground coal mine.

Montana attorney general Austin Knudsen (R) and other states — including Arizona, Kentucky, Texas, Wyoming and Utah — on 28 June filed a multi-state amicus brief with the court seeking an en banc review that would be conducted by all of the judges in the 9th Circuit. Both defendants in the case, the US Interior Department and Signal Peak, filed requests on 21 June for the appeals court to reconsider its previous order.

A three-judge panel in April issued a split decision where two of the judges ruled Interior's Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement had failed to explain its rationale for determining that expanding the footprint of Signal Peak's mining site by 7,000 acres would not have a significant effect on the environment. The two judges in the majority said OSMRE violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), partially upheld a 2020 ruling from the US District Court for the District of Montana, and remanded the case back to the lower court.

But the two judges in the majority seemed to have substituted their judgment for OSMRE's, the states said in their filing yesterday.

The majority opinion appeared to rely on the same data OSMRE outlined in its 2018 environmental assessments, the states said. And rather than discuss any "overlooked, missed, or ignored data," the two judges seemed to have "simply disagreed" with OSMRE's determination.

The states also said that plaintiffs in the case, environmental groups including the Sierra Club, "weaponize" NEPA to halt the mine's expansion in a "seemingly endless limbo," which "subverts NEPA's purpose."

Signal Peak first asked to modify the lease in 2013 and received approval from OSMRE in 2015. But the US District Court for the District of Montana in 2017 halted operations on the mine expansion and ordered OSMRE to perform another review. The court later mostly upheld the revised environmental assessments OSMRE published in 2018 and in 2020.

Signal Peak and the Sierra Club could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Bull Mountains mine produced 1.72mn st of coal in the first quarter, up by 12.3pc from a year earlier, according to US Mine Safety and Health Administration data. The Montana mine produces a higher-heat 10,300 Btu/lb coal. Over 98pc of Bull Mountains' coal is exported directly to end-users in Japan, South Korea, Chile, and Hong Kong.

By Elena Vasilyeva