Coal Industry's Endangered Species Loophole Just Got Slammed Shut

For years, coal mining operations have been operating under a regulatory umbrella that essentially allowed them to sidestep the hard work of actually protecting endangered wildlife. A May ruling from the US District Court for the District of Columbia just yanked that umbrella away.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued federal mining authorities over a streamlined compliance process that let coal companies avoid thorough harm analysis and operate without meaningful limits on their environmental damage. The court agreed: the practice was illegal. Coal mines will now have to follow the actual law—which means analyzing the real harm they cause to protected plants and animals before, during, and after operations.

This matters most to Appalachia, where mountaintop removal mining has been decimating rivers and streams for decades. The Center’s legal challenge, joined by Appalachian Voices, targeted a 2020 regulatory opinion that Willie Dodson, coal impacts program manager for Appalachian Voices, called a“ludicrous and extra-legal scheme.”That opinion essentially gave coal companies a free pass to tear through watersheds where species like the Guyandotte River crayfish and the candy darter are barely hanging on.

Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, framed the stakes clearly:“For too long regulators have allowed coal mining to devastate wildlife. This decision will require coal mines to fully account for their threats and harms and do more to ensure that imperiled wildlife aren’t pushed to extinction for dirty fossil fuel profits.”

The Endangered Species Act was designed to prevent extinction through mandatory harm analysis and swift curtailment of damaging practices. For it to actually work, federal regulators have to enforce it. For too long, they didn’t. Now they will. And that’s worth celebrating—especially if you live downstream from a mining operation or simply believe that some rivers and species should still exist for future generations to know.