The St. Louis, Missouri-based company made its request for relief last year when the Trump administration was in office, and the Bureau of Land Management approved it in May. Arch Resources, formerly Arch Coal, is the second largest coal supplier in the country. It is also a former client of Interior Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau, though the rate reduction was approved before Beaudreau’s confirmation.
Mark Squillace, a professor of natural resources law at the University of Colorado Boulder, called the approval “outrageous” and said he’d like to believe it was some kind of mistake.
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