Coal as a source of fuel both in the U.S. and abroad. U.S. coal production dropped to 756 million tons last year from more than 1 billion in 2014 and is expected to continue to decline, according to the Energy Information Administration, the Wall Street Journal reported. About 60 percent of the nation’s coal is mined by companies that have been through bankruptcy over the past five years, according to Prof. Joshua Macey, a Cornell Law School visiting assistant professor who has written about industry restructuring. But the number of potential buyers for coal businesses is shrinking, creating a dilemma for courts that are charged with deciding what to do with troubled mines. Bankruptcy courts are often asked to weigh proposed asset sales involving buyers that may not have the financial or technical wherewithal to mine coal. But rejecting those deals can mean sticking states with abandoned, environmentally devastated lands and putting more miners out of work. State regulators have the chance in bankruptcy court to oppose sales to undercapitalized or underprepared owners, said Peter Morgan, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, an environmental organization. “But those regulators are in an impossible position,” he said. “If the courts hold up the deals, then the company might abandon the properties, in which case the states become responsible, and they would rather let someone [else] at least take a shot.”
