By: Jacob Fischler

Kentucky Lantern

 

President Donald Trump signed four executive orders Tuesday aiming to invigorate the U.S. coal industry.

In wide-ranging comments in front of a phalanx of coal miners at the White House, Trump said the orders would revitalize an industry pushed to the brink by Democratic policies that encourage renewable energy.

“This is a very important day to me, because we’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned, despite the fact that it was just about the best, certainly the best in terms of power, real power,” Trump said.

The orders:

• End a moratorium on leasing federal lands for coal mining;
• Remove Biden administration environmental regulations that Trump said slow approvals of new mining projects;
• Prioritize grid security and reliability; and
• Direct the U.S. Justice Department to block states from enforcing their own regulations on coal.

Two of the orders cite increased energy demand for the power-intensive task of artificial intelligence data processing as the rationale for increasing coal production.

‘Beautiful, clean coal’

Trump cast the move as a direct rebuke to his Democratic predecessors, Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and said it was in service of restoring working-class jobs in states like West Virginia.

“We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all. And it wasn’t just Biden, it was Obama and others, but we’re doing the exact opposite… We’re going to put the miners back to work.”

A 2024 Biden rule to raise emissions standards on coal plants was unworkable, one of the orders, which reversed the Biden rule, said.

“The Rule requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially viable form,” the order said. “The Rule therefore raises the unacceptable risk of the shutdown of many coal-fired power plants, eliminating thousands of jobs, placing our electrical grid at risk, and threatening broader, harmful economic and energy security effects.”

With both U.S. senators from West Virginia, Republicans Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, on hand, Trump said the state’s workers rejected Democrats’ vision of transitioning away from their mining identity.

“One thing I learned about the coal miners is that’s what they want to do,” he said. “You could give them a penthouse on Fifth Avenue in a different kind of a job, but they’d be unhappy. They want to mine coal. That’s what they love to do.”

A ray of hope for Kentucky miners

Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, represented the Kentucky legislature (along with Kentucky Coal Association Chairman Tucker Davis, East Kentucky Power Cooperative President Tony Campbell, and Hazard-native and Alliance Coal President Joe Craft) in Washington at President Trump’s announcement of the executive orders.

“America’s energy demands are only increasing. I’m encouraged by President Donald Trump’s executive order to expedite and streamline the permitting and processing of coal-fired plants in Kentucky once again,” Stivers said. “The incentive package now in place will allow Kentucky to take full advantage of an all-of-the-above energy approach once again, and provide for Kentucky’s growing energy demands right here in the commonwealth. Kentucky is uniquely positioned to rejuvenate and refurbish our existing coal-fired plants, and get them operational quickly for maximum output.”

He said the orders were a “ray of hope” for existing coal-fired plants, the eastern and western Kentucky minefields and the hard-working Kentuckians seeking a second chance at coal for their livelihood.

“I’m pleased President Trump invited me to participate in this significant announcement and change in policy. I’m excited about the potential to expand production and become a more aggressive energy exporter,” Stivers said.

State Sen. Scott Madon, R-Pineville, said Tuesday was a great day for Eastern Kentucky.

“It’s a great day in Eastern Kentucky… for all Kentuckians who depend on coal for their energy needs — to the tune of over 60% comes from coal,” he said. “Just a few short years ago we produced over 80% of our own energy through coal. Coal keeps the lights on.”

Reopening plans for mines in Montana, Wyoming

A press release from the Interior Department, which oversees resource management on public lands, added that one of the orders reopens plans to build mines in Montana and Wyoming, removes regulatory burdens on coal production and lowers royalty rates coal companies owe for production on federal lands.

Environmental groups cautioned against a renewed federal investment in coal and took particular exception to the provision allowing the federal government to undermine state efforts to move away from the sector.

“Reviving or extending coal to power data centers would force working families to subsidize polluting coal on behalf of Big Tech billionaires and despoil our nation’s public lands,” Tyson Slocum, the energy policy director for the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement. “States planning to move to cleaner, cheaper energy sources could be forced to keep old coal plants up and running for years, forcing nearby residents to breathe dirty air and harming the climate.”

In a line that appeared ad-libbed, Trump also promised the orders could not be reversed by a future president.

“We’re going to give a guarantee that the business will not be terminated by the ups and downs of the world of politics,” he said. “We’re going to give a guarantee that it’s not going to happen, so that if somebody comes in, they cannot change it at a whim.”

Trump said he’d thought of the idea “about 15 minutes before” getting on stage at the White House.