Billings, Mont. • A federal judge on Friday ruled that the Trump administration failed to consider potential damage to the environment from its decision to resume coal sales from U.S. lands, but the court stopped short of halting future sales.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in Montana said Interior Department officials had wrongly avoided an environmental review of their action by describing it "as a mere policy shift." In so doing, officials ignored the environmental effects of selling huge volumes of coal from public lands, the judge said.
The ruling marks another in a string of judicial setbacks for President Donald Trump's attempts to boost North American energy production.