Legal challenges to moratorium likely as US Department of Interior considers reforms.

On Friday, January 15, 2016, US Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that the US will “pause” federal coal leasing while it studies coal program reforms pursuant to newly-issued Order No. 3338 (Order). The Order directs the Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to prepare a discretionary Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) to analyze potential reforms to the federal coal program Secretary Jewell further instructs BLM to suspend the issuance of new federal coal leases and lease modifications while the Department completes its programmatic review.