Environmental groups took their legal fight to rein in carbon dioxide produced from burning Wyoming coal to a new agency, the US Forest Service.

The Forest Service oversees national grasslands and in October signed off on the expansion of the North Antelope Rochelle Mine farther onto the Thunder Basin National Grassland. The surface coal mine is among the world's largest.

The three groups WildEarth Guardians, the Powder River Basin Resource Council and Sierra Club said that the Forest Service didn't adequately consider how burning the additional mined coal would affect the climate. They sued the Forest Service in US District Court in Colorado.

The lawsuit said that burning the additional coal beneath more than 1,600 acres of national grassland would release more than 600 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the annual output from more than 150 coal fired power plants.

Jeremy Nichols with WildEarth Guardians told The Associated Press that the Forest Service seems to have taken climate change seriously in other contexts.

He said that "They've said things like global warming is a serious threat to national forests and grasslands. Well, that's great. Now do something about it.”

US Forest Service spokesman Mr Steve Segin said the agency is reviewing the complaint. A spokeswoman for St. Louis based Peabody Energy Corp., which owns the North Antelope Rochelle Mine 65 miles south of Gillette, pointed out that the company is not party to the lawsuit and declined to comment.

(Sourced from The Billings Gazette)