I may come late to this thread, but why are we in this nation bogged down on trading charges of who is lying and who is not, when especially the US Eastern coal questions are really a matter of wise public policy vs US environmental suicide.
Simply because the world wide distribution of "fossil fuels" was decided by Mother nature even before the the age of the dinosaurs. When it came to abundant oil, most current human nations were simply standing behind the door when the oil was handed out. But still the USA did far better than average in terms of coal when it was handed out. With the somewhat distinction being, US coal was formed in two separate Geological time periods. As the US coal formed East of the present location of the Mississippi river formed in low lying swamps in the Pennsylvanian era and dates to before the rise of the present day Applications Mountains. While Western coal deposits formed later and only ended when geological processes also up thrust low lying swamps to well above sea level. Which ended peat and then coal formation.
As the US Western and Eastern coal deposits might as well have occurred on different continents or different planets, especially after the deeper Eastern anthracite coal depots are already depleted. Simply because Eastern coal deposits are seriously the worst of all environmental options in every way. Menaces to public health to mine, menaces to strip mine as the the resulting environmental damage and high sulfur content blights and contaminates the bulk of the US south east. And the burning of such high sulfur coal causes acid rain that causes even more damage world wide.
At least Western US coal deposits have far less sulfur content, but still share the same global warming bad news common in burning too much fossil fuels in a too short period of time.
But still in my mind, the burning of Eastern coal is stupidity on steroids, but if we stop the practice it costs US jobs.