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Federal Watchdog: Interior Department Scrapped Coal Health Study Without Good Reason

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaks with the press.
U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke speaks with the press.

Federal Watchdog: Interior Department Scrapped Coal Health Study Without Good Reason

A federal watchdog group said the U.S. Interior Department didn’t give an adequate reason for cancelling a study on the health impacts of coal mining last year.

At the time, federal officials said the study wouldn’t yield any new findings.

But the U.S. Office of the Inspector General said the agency couldn’t provide any evidence to back up that assertion.  

The Inspector General’s office also said Interior wasted almost $500,000 by ending the study early.

“My first thought is that this is completely typical of Secretary Zinke’s war on science,” said Aaron Weiss, a spokesperson for the environmental group Center For Western Priorities.

Weiss believed the U.S. Interior Department is burying scientific studies like this that don’t fit its pro-energy extraction narrative.

In a statement, Interior spokesperson Heather Swift said the coal mining study was a “duplicative and wasteful taxpayer-funded project.”

The study was launched by the Obama administration. It hoped to explore the health impacts of  removing mountaintops to mine the coal within.

The investigation into the project’s cancellation was initially requested by a ranking U.S. House Democrat.

This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, Yellowstone Public Radio in Montana, KUER in Salt Lake City and KRCC and KUNC in Colorado.

Copyright 2021 Yellowstone Public Radio. To see more, visit Yellowstone Public Radio.

Nate is UM School of Journalism reporter. He reads the news on Montana Public Radio three nights a week.
Nate Hegyi
Nate Hegyi is a reporter with the Mountain West News Bureau based at Yellowstone Public Radio. He earned an M.A. in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism in 2016 and interned at NPR’s Morning Edition in 2014. In a prior life, he toured around the country in a band, lived in Texas for a spell, and once tried unsuccessfully to fly fish. You can reach Nate at nate@ypradio.org.
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