The U.S. Forest Service has finalized an exception for Colorado in the nation’s rule for protecting last-remaining roadless forests: allowing expansion of a coal mine that cuts beneath pristine woods near Paonia in the North Fork Valley.

That decision enabling construction of temporary roads and drilling pads on 19,700 acres — to be published Monday in the federal register — reflects the latest version of a compromise Colorado officials have demanded for years.

A national roadless rule since 2001 has prohibited construction of new roads and other development that could hurt intact forests, and a Colorado version of it adopted in 2012 covers 4.2 million acres in the state.

But Colorado leaders have pressed for the coal mine exception, even after a federal court in 2014 rejected it as likely to worsen climate change. Last week, forest service regional officials revealed, via e-mail, the decision to grant a re-crafted exception. An agency spokesman said the Obama administration agriculture secretary made the decision. Forest Service officials could not be reached to discuss it.

This exception could help Arch Coal’s West Elk Mine extract hundreds of million of tons more coal from under the Gunnison National Forest by giving access to surface forests — needed for expanding underground tunnels. West Elk Mine crews would have to carve out temporary roads and clear pads to drill vents that remove methane gases from tunnels so miners could produce safely.

Congressman Scott Tipton praised the Forest Service decision to reinstate the coal mining exception. “Serial litigation tactics implemented by extreme special interests have put the livelihoods of families in Delta and Gunnison counties at risk,” Tipton said, “and I am glad to see action from the Forest Service.”

Western Colorado environment advocates blasted the decision as bad for wildlife habitat and for the climate — because of the emissions of heat-trapping methane and carbon dioxide from burning coal.

“It is wrong to make a decision that is going to result in a significant cost to the world economy and the environment and to Colorado’s environment,” Earthjustice staff attorney Ted Zukoski said.

“The U.S. Forest Service is making climate change worse. They are saying, ‘We are OK with $3 billion more in climate costs,’ to society. They are saying, ‘We are OK with millions of extra tons of carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal and methane from mining it.’ ”

St. Louis-based Arch Coal has applied to the Forest Service for a permit to expand the West Elk Mine. Forest Service officials apparently are reviewing the application.

Statewide coal production has plummeted 50 percent since 2004, costing hundreds of jobs. And critics contend the exception to the roadless rule amounts to a giveaway to the coal industry — one that undercuts the U.S. commitment to reducing pollution linked to climate change.

While the 2001 rule applies to forests nationwide, Colorado and Idaho pushed for state-specific rules that could give greater flexibility for economic development. Colorado’s rule, done in 2012, covers 400,000 acres more than the 2001 rule it replaced, and it increased protection for 1.2 million acres deemed high-quality, while also allowing possible expansion of ski areas on about 8,000 acres.

Colorado leaders then pressed for the exception for coal-mining in the North Fork Valley.

In 2014, a federal court rejected a Forest Service decision to grant the exception, ruling that Forest Service officials failed to consider adequately the climate change impacts of mining, which would extract as much as 350 million tons more coal.

Forest Service officials’ latest version of the exception reduces the amount of coal that temporary roads and drilling pads would enable to 173 million tons.

Coal mining long has played a key role in the western Colorado economy. But most of the mines in the North Fork Valley have closed amid competition from natural gas as a source of energy to generate electricity. The coal companies that once employed hundreds in the valley now are tasked with restoring damaged land. But West Elk, despite an Arch Coal bankruptcy, has managed to keep producing, with a workforce of about 300 — struggling to stay alive as long as is economically feasible.