Washington (Platts)--24Apr2012/153 pm EDT/1753 GMT

Representative Edward Markey, the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, has asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct the first review in nearly two decades of the Bureau of Land Management's coal leasing program.

Markey, the senior Democrat on the committee, sent a letter Tuesday to the GAO recommending a thorough examination of BLM's process of determining fair market value for federal coal leases and whether exporting to higher priced foreign markets should impact this assessment.

"Coal exports are rising as U.S. electricity producers move away from coal in favor of natural gas and renewable energy," Markey wrote in the letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro. "With such rapid market changes taking place, American taxpayers must be assured they are receiving the full value for energy resources held in the public trust, especially when mining companies are seeking to export hundreds of millions of tons of coal for premium prices."

Estimating that coal exports could grow from 2011's two-decade high of 107 million short tons to 250 million st by 2017, Markey wrote that the review would enable the committee to see "what implications rising coal exports and declining domestic demand might have."

One of Markey's staff members, Eben Burnham-Snyder, said there were several impetuses for a review.

"I think it's more a case of building circumstances. Number one: the expansion of coal exports. Number two: over the last couple years, there's been more of an examination of fair market value," Burnham-Snyder said. "We've been trying to push for a better royalty system for oil and extraction on public lands and now we are focusing on coal. Many of those laws are severely outdated in terms of a return to the taxpayer."

--Henry Clay Webster, henry_webster@platts.com

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