The Utah reserve contains the kind of low-sulfur, low-ash, and therefore low-polluting coal the likes of which can be found in only a couple of places in the world. It burns so cleanly that it meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act without additional technology.
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Trump does not patron to political donors.
Coal right in our back yard that became locked in by Clinton for the benefit of a donor.

If we don't preserve what we have, when we need it there will be none. Besides many industries are not using coal. Destroying a natural habitat for greedy land speculators is not smart. It's not worth the destruction of land that should remain untouched for future generations. We shouldn't want to leave our children places that they can only see in books or film because of poor stewardship of our natural resources due to greed and stupidity.

20 years ago they were still using coal. With all the restrictions on using dirty coal cost all those dirty coal users billions of dollars to comply. Those billions passed on as cost to the consumer. Then it cost those coal users billions to transfer to other energy options.
Then we had the President who wanted to shut down the coal industry and the use of coal. Then we had a Presidential candidate who was going to put all the coal miners out of work and bankrupt the coal companies.
All the above went down because that clean coal which met environmental standard was placed off limits.
The overburden could have been stripped away and the coal mined. Then that overburden could have been placed back on where the mining occurred returning the surface to its original state. The topography may have changed some where the coal was mined. Topography changes all the time where human activity occurs.

The coal miners are still out of work. The men that once did all the digging are replaced by machinery that can work without vacations, medical insurance, holidays or pay raises, or suffer with Black Lung disease after years underground. That era is gone for good. There are not many mines that can run with a profit using old technology.