Today, the US Department of the Interior announced that it will put a halt to new leases for coal extraction on public lands. While coal companies could continue to mine on existing leases, no new ones will be permitted until a comprehensive review of the program is completed. Roughly 40 percent of the nation's coal comes from public lands.

“We haven’t undertaken a comprehensive review of the program in more than 30 years, and we have an obligation to current and future generations to ensure the federal coal program delivers a fair return to American taxpayers and takes into account its impacts on climate change,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said via a released statement.

The announcement follows President Obama's latest State of the Union Address, in which he called for changes in how the US manages its coal and oil resources. Obama suggested that the costs fossil fuels impose on the planet need to be taken into account, language that was echoed in Jewell's announcement. The move implies that there will be some effort to have the extraction of coal include some portion of the social cost of carbon, which has until now been left as an externality.

In addition, Jewell's announcement called for greater transparency and competition in the process of leasing lands for extraction. In general, leases on federal lands for a variety of purposes are far less expensive than those obtained from private parties.

While ostensibly just a pause, the announcement makes it clear that any return to leasing will come at a higher price. Coal is already struggling against plunging prices in natural gas, wind, and solar power. By the time leases are restarted, coal may also be constrained by limits on carbon emissions imposed by the Clean Air Act. Combined, these factors may ensure that some of the coal in the US stays in the ground, something considered essential to reaching the goals agreed to in the recent Paris climate accords.

Existing leases would allow coal producers to continue extracting at current rates for decades. But the coal industry is clearly struggling even before any of the government policies have been finalized. The second largest US coal producer, Arch Coal, filed for bankruptcy earlier this week. Combined, the coal companies that are in bankruptcy account for a quarter of the coal produced in the US.

The bankruptcies come largely because these companies expanded production capacity under the expectations of continued US use and expansion of exports to overseas users. And like the US, those overseas users are attempting to limit their use of coal. Exports to China have dropped by two-thirds in the last year, while exports to Europe have halved.

Combined, all of these factors have led to the lowest production of coal in the US since the 1980s. Having bet their companies on future growth, many coal producers are now suffering. Any policy changes on the part of Interior won't make things worse, but they certainly won't help.