After Montana Dud, Feds Hit Pause on Wyoming Coal Lease Sale

Two days after a coal auction in Montana drew a single bargain-basement bid, the Trump administration tapped the brakes on a planned sale of federal coal in Wyoming, Reuters reports.

An Interior Department spokesperson said Wednesday the Bureau of Land Management would postpone the auction of 3,508 acres in Campbell and Converse counties — home to an estimated 365 million tons of recoverable coal — and set a new date later. No reason was given for the delay, even though BLM was expected to keep processing fossil-fuel permits and leases during the government shutdown under its contingency plans.

The pause comes on the heels of Monday’s lackluster sale in Big Horn County, Montana, where only Navajo Transitional Energy Company showed up. NTEC, which runs the nearby Spring Creek Mine, bid $186,000 for 1,262 acres holding roughly 167.5 million tons — less than a penny a ton. Interior hasn’t accepted the offer yet; by law, BLM first has to decide whether it meets fair-market value. In its filings, NTEC argued that value should be close to the statutory minimum of $100 per acre. The company didn’t comment.

Interior blamed weak interest on what it called the Obama-Biden “war on coal,” while insisting the current White House is “rebuilding trust” with industry as part of a push for “American Energy Dominance.” The previous Democratic administrations tightened environmental rules to cut pollution and nudge the grid toward renewables. President Trump, by contrast, has vowed to revive federal coal leasing, pitching it as fuel for soaring electricity demand tied to AI data centers.

For now, Wyoming’s sale is in limbo — another sign that, politics aside, the market for new federal coal is testing just how low bidders are willing to go.