A federal judge Wednesday rebuffed a coal company’s request to force a speedier environmental review of a mine expansion in Montana, concluding that the Interior Department still has about three months before it misses a critical deadline.
Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected Signal Peak Energy’s argument that federal regulators have exceeded their allotted time to conduct an environmental review of its plans to expand its Bull Mountains coal mine in Montana.
The decision marks another chapter in an ongoing lawsuit that began earlier this year, when Signal Peak lodged a complaint against the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, or OSMRE.
The company accused the agency of dragging its feet in reviewing its plans for the Bull Mountains mine, and violating National Environmental Policy Act amendments passed by Congress last year as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. The legislation that increased the federal debt limit also expedited approvals for the contentious Mountain Valley natural gas pipeline.
