The power plants are owned by the utilities. The coal was owned by the Indians and the royalties were negotiated by the Feds (Interior Dept) on behalf of the Tribes as their "trustee". You could easily make the argument the Govt should have forseen this and should have been funding economic security through the royalties.

My question is how are the rest of us going to to pay for our cheap energy. Don't forget that these Govt negotiated royalties cannot help but have had some influence on the price of coal across the USA.