“Over the last two years, we’ve seen zero progress on the thermal coal export ban, and now we’re seeing Canada move in the opposite direction by refusing to even assess the impacts of a major expansion of Canada’s largest thermal coal mine,” Julia Levin of Environmental Defence told Canada’s National Observer in a phone interview. The federal government promised to end thermal coal exports by 2030, but Coalspur’s mine expansion project would operate for 11 years, until at least 2036.