The Interior Department and a North Dakota coal mining company won their joint bid to get rid of litigation between them over a coal lease application that was allegedly overdue years for review.
Falkirk Mining Co.—a unit of NACCO Natural Resources—sued Interior’s Bureau of Land Management under the Mineral Leasing Act in March 2024. The company argued the agency didn’t comply with federal statute by failing to act on a lease application for federal coal for more than four years. Falkirk owns a coal mine and sought the federal lease because it can’t extract any coal underlying ...