Federal authorities have turned down a mining company’s proposal to extract 1.3 million tons of coal from beneath a national forest in Utah, marking the third instance this month where a proposed coal sale from public lands in the western United States has been halted.

This series of rejections deals a blow to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to rejuvenate a coal mining industry that has been experiencing a steady decline for nearly 20 years.

The Interior Department dismissed the sole bid for coal from a proposed 120-acre lease situated within the Manti-La Sal National Forest, located near central Utah’s Skyline Mine. According to agency spokesperson Alyse Sharpe, the bid did not satisfy the stipulations outlined in the Mineral Leasing Act.

The act mandates that companies must pay a fair market value for coal extracted from public lands. Sharpe did not disclose the bid amount. The proposal was initiated by a subsidiary of Utah’s Wolverine Fuels LLC, which operates the Skyline Mine along with several other coal mines in the region.

Just two weeks ago, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced plans to open 13 million acres of federal lands for coal mining. However, it remains uncertain who would be interested in such fuel, as many utilities are increasingly opting for cheaper natural gas and renewable energy sources like wind and solar power to produce electricity.

Emissions from burning coal are a leading driver of climate change that’s raising sea levels and making weather more extreme.

On Oct. 6, a coal sale from public lands in Montana that would have been the largest by the government in more than a decade drew a single bid of $186,000, or about one-tenth of a penny per ton of coal, and was later rejected. That lease held 167 million tons of coal in southeastern Montana near the Navajo Transition Energy Co.’s Spring Creek mine.

Two days later the Interior Department postponed an even bigger sale — 440 million tons next to the Navajo Nation-owned company’s Antelope Mine in Wyoming.

Sharpe repeated the Republican Trump administration’s assertion that the policies of former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama were to blame for the failed sales, saying the Democrats tried “to dismantle domestic production and shake investor confidence in the industry.”

Both Democrats attempted to curb sales of coal from public lands, only to have those policies reversed by Trump.

Three other coal lease sales from public lands under Trump were successful. The largest, in Alabama, involved 54 million tons of coal used in steelmaking that sold last month for $46 million, or about 87 cents per ton. Two recent sales in North Dakota of leases containing a combined 30 million tons of coal brought in $186,000 total, or less than a penny per ton.

“As demand for reliable, dispatchable power grows, coal remains a critical component of ensuring affordable and dependable energy for the American people,” Sharpe said in a statement.

But industry analysts and economists say the biggest driver of coal’s retreat has been market forces that make other fuels more economical. Many power plants served by large mines on public lands in the West are nearing retirement.

Environmentalists have fought for years against the expansion of Utah’s Skyline Mine. Emma Yip with the Center for Biological Diversity described the bid rejection as “yet another face-plant for the Trump administration” as it tries to prop up a dying industry.

“Coal is among the dirtiest energy sources on Earth and burning it continues to sicken and kill Americans. There’s no defensible reason to keep it on life support when absolutely nobody wants it,” Yip said.