[Congressional Bills 106th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2300 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]

        S.2300

                       One Hundred Sixth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America


                          AT THE SECOND SESSION

           Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday,
             the twenty-fourth day of January, two thousand


                                 An Act


 
  To amend the Mineral Leasing Act to increase the maximum acreage of 
  Federal leases for coal that may be held by an entity in any 1 State.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Coal Market Competition Act of 
2000''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds that--
        (1) Federal land contains commercial deposits of coal, the 
    Nation's largest deposits of coal being located on Federal land in 
    Utah, Colorado, Montana, and the Powder River Basin of Wyoming;
        (2) coal is mined on Federal land through Federal coal leases 
    under the Act of February 25, 1920 (commonly known as the ``Mineral 
    Leasing Act'') (30 U.S.C. 181 et seq.);
        (3) the sub-bituminous coal from these mines is low in sulfur, 
    making it the cleanest burning coal for energy production;
        (4) the Mineral Leasing Act sets for each leasable mineral a 
    limitation on the amount of acreage of Federal leases any 1 
    producer may hold in any 1 State or nationally;
        (5)(A) the present acreage limitation for Federal coal leases 
    has been in place since 1976;
        (B) currently the coal lease acreage limit of 46,080 acres per 
    State is less than the per-State Federal lease acreage limit for 
    potash (96,000 acres) and oil and gas (246,080 acres);
        (6) coal producers in Wyoming and Utah are operating mines on 
    Federal leaseholds that contain total acreage close to the coal 
    lease acreage ceiling;
        (7) the same reasons that Congress cited in enacting increases 
    for State lease acreage caps applicable in the case of other 
    minerals--the advent of modern mine technology, changes in industry 
    economics, greater global competition, and the need to conserve 
    Federal resources--apply to coal;
        (8) existing coal mines require additional lease acreage to 
    avoid premature closure, but those mines cannot relinquish mined-
    out areas to lease new acreage because those areas are subject to 
    10-year reclamation plans, and the reclaimed acreage is counted 
    against the State and national acreage limits;
        (9) to enable them to make long-term business decisions 
    affecting the type and amount of additional infrastructure 
    investments, coal producers need certainty that sufficient acreage 
    of leasable coal will be available for mining in the future; and
        (10) to maintain the vitality of the domestic coal industry and 
    ensure the continued flow of valuable revenues to the Federal and 
    State governments and of energy to the American public from coal 
    production on Federal land, the Mineral Leasing Act should be 
    amended to increase the acreage limitation for Federal coal leases.

SEC. 3. COAL MINING ON FEDERAL LAND.

    Section 27(a) of the Act of February 25, 1920 (30 U.S.C. 184(a)), 
is amended--
        (1) by striking ``(a)'' and all that follows through ``No 
    person'' and inserting ``(a) Coal Leases.--No person'';
        (2) by striking ``forty-six thousand and eighty acres'' and 
    inserting ``75,000 acres''; and
        (3) by striking ``one hundred thousand acres'' each place it 
    appears and inserting ``150,000 acres''.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.