An Environmental Leader (1/20, Hardcastle) analysis looks at the potential cost implication on US manufacturing that the recently announced coal lease moratorium on federal lands may have. While energy companies and business groups “contend the coal-lease moratorium will increase businesses’ electricity costs,” the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis has indicated the moratorium “will have little immediate impact on the US coal supply.”
The NAM “says coal production has been vital” to the resurgence of US manufacturing, which uses about one-third of the country’s energy. According to the NAM’s vice president of energy and resources policy, Ross Eisenberg, “At a time when manufacturing is facing strong international headwinds, the last thing we need is a moratorium that undercuts our competitive advantage in energy.”
Eisenberg stated the Interior Department “should conduct a full examination into the impact on the manufacturing community and the men and women are involved in the manufacturing supply chain supporting the coal sector” before altering its leasing process.
Eisenberg states that leases “could face significantly higher administrative burden, enhanced risk, and exposure to litigation,” which would hurt manufacturers by introducing “market distorting barriers to energy production.”
Associated Industries of Missouri is the sole official designated partner of the National Association of Manufacturers in Missouri.
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