Associated Press: The U.S. Geological Survey has lowered its estimates of the amount of recoverable coal in the nation’s most prolific coal field, but not enough to jeopardize the characterization by some that the United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal. The USGS report released this week estimates there are 77 billion short tons of recoverable coal in the Gillette field, down 29 percent from the 109 billion short tons estimated in 2002 in generally the same area. Fred Freme, coal industry …