The bill was one of three passed by the House last Wednesday rescinding resource management plans on nearly 30 million acres of public land in Montana, North Dakota and Alaska. Last year the Bureau of Land Management said in 2022, the two mines had produced about two-thirds the coal they produced in 2007. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects U.S. coal production to drop from 610 million tons in 2022 to 450 million tons in 2040, and Western U.S. production to drop from 335 million tons to 224 million tons over the same period. “Under the Biden Administration, BLM’s proposal would have rendered Montana’s coal resources useless, depriving Montana schools and other institutions of a critical funding source,” Gianforte wrote. “It will also stifle our state’s growing economy and increase our dependence on foreign nations for coal and energy production.