Judge orders US officials to weigh coal mines’ climate costs

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A judge says U.S. officials downplayed climate change impacts and other environmental costs from the expansion of a massive coal mine near the Montana-Wyoming border. U.S. District Judge Susan Watters said in a ruling Wednesday that under former President Donald Trump, officials played up the economic benefits of the Spring Creek Mine expansion but failed to consider the society-wide impacts of climate change. Spring Creek is Montana’s largest coal mine. Enviro