Trump restores coal program that rips off taxpayers

U.S Department of the Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke took to the radio airwaves to talk up the Trump administration's new pro-coal policies for public lands. He even took a cheap shot at clean energy—which employs far more Americans than coal—by saying, “We can’t power the country on pixie dust and hope.” But while Zinke's talk is cheap, his actions cost a lot. That's because he revoked the Obama-era moratorium on the Interior Department's flawed coal-leasing program, which has shortchanged taxpayers by more than $30 billion. Lifting the ban—which was instituted in 2015 so that the entire coal-leasing program on federal lands could be reviewed and improved—means Americans are once again going to be footing the bill while the coal industry essentially dictates our public lands policy.