I really don’t have a problem with this, without digging into the major details it looks like this:
Company A agrees to pay US government X% of sale price in exchange for being able to dig up the coal on US Public Lands.
Company A then forms or engages Shell Company B.
Company A sells coal to B for say $10. US Government gets its percentage of $10
Company B then sells it to asia for $20.
Since Company B is just a shill to reduce the royalty obligation to the Fed... I have no issues shutting it down and requiring companies pay their royalties on the price they actually sell the coal for.
I didn’t see any of those details in the article. Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, the Obama administration doesn’t like coal?
How about the govt makes it illegal to sell to company A, then jacks up the revenue on company b?
From what I know Western Coal is low grade coal.
Compliance coal used by power companies mandated by the Feds had to be 12500 BTU’s low ash and low sulfur content.
Our coal was 13500 to 14000 BTU’s less than 1% sulfur and 3 to 4% ash. Our coal was purchased to bring crap coal up to specs therefore the coal companies that mixed ours with their crap coal had to pay us top dollar.
Most likely we are not getting the full story as usual.