Coal’s Collapse Exposed: Federal Sale Fetches Less Than a Penny Per Ton Amid Policy Chaos

In a striking signal of coal’s persistent decline, a Navajo tribe-owned company stunned observers by bidding just $186,000 to lease 167 million tons of coal on federal lands in southeastern Montana, marking the largest U.S. coal sale in more than a decade—and yet at a price barely above scrap value.This bid, amounting to less than one-tenth of a cent per ton, exposes an inconvenient truth: political rhetoric from Washington promising energy independence through fossil fuels often clashes with harsh market realities. President Trump’s push to reinvigorate coal mining confronts declining demand and an industry losing ground to natural gas and...