"Nearly 85% of the 13.1 million acres the Trump administration is opening to coal leasing is private or state-owned and unlikely to be mined anytime soon, except for land adjacent to existing coal mines, analysts say.
The Bureau of Land Management on Wednesday published a full list and series of maps showing where the acres opening for coal leasing are, and more details appeared in a Federal Register public inspection notice.
About 11,079,400 acres of the 13.1 million opening for coal leasing are known as “split-estate,” in which the surface of the land is private or owned by a local government, but the underground minerals are federally owned. Most of that land is in North Dakota and eastern Montana.
Of the federal land opened to coal leasing, 1,959,000 acres are managed by Interior Department agencies, and 65,000 acres are managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The majority of that land is in Montana and Wyoming, with 200,000 acres in New Mexico, 100,000 in Colorado, and 29,000 in Utah."
Bobby Magill reports for Bloomberg Environment October 1, 2025.
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