Today, Ethics Watch Senior Counsel Peg Perl made the following public statement at the Bureau of Land Management public listening session regarding the federal coal program in Golden.
“When some coal companies use corporate subsidiaries to artificially lower royalties paid to the federal and state governments, they not only cheat the citizens, they also gain an unfair advantage over competitors. Regardless of where you stand on the proper standards for power plant emissions, we should all agree that the American people should get fair royalty payments for mining operations on our public land, and that companies who bend the rules should not get an unfair advantage over their competitors who aren’t gaming the system. Any losses the mining company may suffer from a lower priced transaction are more than made up for by profits of the marketing company that flow up the chain to the corporate parent. However, every dollar of royalty revenue that the government should be but isn’t collecting, adds to our deficit and shifts more of the cost of government on to hard-working taxpayers in Colorado.
There is little doubt that the current loophole exploited by some larger coal companies is subject to the influence of money in politics and lobbying. According to public disclosures analyzed by opensecrets.org, in the 2014 election cycle the coal mining industry spent $9.8 million on lobbying for favorable treatment under federal programs. The coal industry is also a major player in campaign contributions for members of Congress, giving over $26 million in candidate contributions in the 2012 and 2014 cycles alone (opensecrets.org). The public record in the coal valuation rulemaking includes a letter from fifteen members of Congress urging the DOI to slow down reform efforts – a position consistent with larger coal companies that benefit from the current loophole. Each of those legislators has received thousands of dollars in contributions from the coal industry since 2012, including all three of the Colorado delegation members who signed that letter. Such a large checkbook wields influence in Congress (opensecrets.org).
It is hard for smaller companies and the citizens who suffer the effects of lower royalty payments to be heard when big money is spent in politics and lobbying to enrich profits of large coal companies. We hope you use this listening session to hear the voices that cannot spend millions on campaign contributions and Washington lobbyists. The BLM should ignore the calls to go slow and fix the coal royalty loophole so that all coal companies pay fair market prices for using our public lands for their private profit.”
