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FILE - A haul truck is seen after being loaded with coal by a mechanized shovel at the Spring Creek mine, in this Nov. 15, 2016 photo, near Decker, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

BILLINGS, Mont. – U.S. officials in the coming days are set to hold the government's biggest coal sales in more than a decade, offering 600 million tons from publicly owned reserves next to strip mines in Montana and Wyoming.

The sales are a signature piece of President Donald Trump's ambitions for companies to dig more coal from federal lands and burn it for electricity. Yet most power plants served by those mines plan to quit burning coal altogether within 10 years, an Associated Press data analysis shows.

Three other mines poised for expansions or new leases under Trump also face declining dema

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