Wyoming Delegation Celebrates Coal Victory at White House

In a significant victory for Wyoming energy, Senators Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso, and Representative Harriet Hageman (all R-WY) joined President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, December 12, for the signing of their Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution nullifying the Biden administration’s Buffalo Resource Management Plan Amendment (RMPA). The presidential signing officially terminates the Biden administration’s Buffalo RMPA, which ended future coal leasing in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin after 2041, reverting to the previous plan and prohibiting the BLM from issuing a substantially similar plan. Lummis called the signing “a great Christmas present,” saying, “Wyoming is key to President Trump’s energy dominance agenda, and rolling back this asinine, anti-Wyoming plan is critical for our state’s future.”

The Wyoming delegation introduced the CRA in both the Senate and the House on October 8, 2025, and it passed both chambers the week before Trump’s signing. However, Barrasso noted passing the bill “was far from a bipartisan, collaborative effort.” However, serious questions remain about whether market demand actually exists for new Wyoming coal, as falling demand has reduced the Powder River Basin’s annual coal production from about 400 million to 200 million tons over the past decade, including during Trump’s coal-friendly first term. Seth Feaster with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis noted, “Demand has fallen considerably. It’s not expected to turn around but continue to drop. It appears new leases are not what the industry really needs.” An attempted coal lease sale in October was postponed shortly after a sale in Montana flopped, with a low bid ultimately rejected by the federal government, and Wyoming hasn’t successfully sold any new federal coal leases since 2012. The delegation’s victory may be pyrrhic—winning the right to lease coal nobody wants to buy.