Trump orders coal back into U.S. energy portfolio

President Trump, surrounded by miners in hard hats, signed several executive orders Tuesday to reinvigorate the coal industry.

He directed government agencies to end discriminatory policies against the coal industry, end the moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands and promote the security and reliability of the country’s electrical grid. He also instructed the Justice Department to investigate any state policies that target coal.

The orders designate coal as a “mineral.” 

Environmentalists and climate change activists regard coal as the dirtiest fossil fuel and have campaigned for years to eliminate its use.

“We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all,” Mr. Trump said in the White House East Room before signing the orders.

One of the coal miners, Jeff Crowe of West Virginia, said that “for too long coal has been a dirty word that most refrain to speak about.”

“Most of those that will speak negatively about coal do so from an uneducated standpoint,” he said. “Many are unaware of the engineering and technology that are used in today’s mining to create a clean, energy efficient product.”

In 2022, Wyoming was the largest coal-producing state, followed by West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Kentucky, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Coal use in the U.S. has dropped to about 16% of energy production in 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration. In 2010, it was 45% of energy production.

The executive orders are one more step in Mr. Trump’s energy plan.

“We need more than double the energy, the electricity that we currently have — you take all the electricity in the country right now for houses, for buildings, for everything, we need to more than double it to be number one,” Mr. Trump said.

He railed against Democrats for wanting to move away from coal mining and toward green energy. He said other countries have moved away from green energy initiatives and back to coal.

On his first day in office, Mr. Trump in a national emergency declaration said that the “energy and critical minerals identification, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity of the United States are all far too inadequate to meet our Nation’s needs.”

He also pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. On Tuesday, he said that the climate change pact was “unfair, one-sided and extremely costly” to the U.S. 

The president said he would safeguard coal mining businesses for years to come.

“We’re going to give a guarantee that business will not be terminated by the ups and downs of the world of politics,” he said.

He cited the expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in Montana that was approved last month and said there would be more to come in states such as Wyoming, Utah, Alabama, North Dakota and West Virginia.

The president also directed Energy Security Chris Wright to use federal funding to invest in next-generation coal technology and to keep the Cholla Power Plant in Arizona open and functioning. It was slated to be closed down this month.

“Pound for pound, coal is the single most reliable, durable, secure and powerful form of energy there is on earth today,” he said.

Energy and climate groups decried the orders.

“The only way to prop up coal is to deny reality, and the reality is that people no longer rely on coal because it’s expensive, unreliable, and devastating to public health,” said Julie McNamara, an associate policy director with the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“Instead of supporting the economy-boosting clean energy transition that maintains widespread public support across the country, President Trump is relentlessly attempting to tear it down. People will pay the price through higher energy bills and towering costs to their health and the environment,” she said in a statement.