Trump to sign executive order to help dying U.S. coal industry

The Washington Post ^ | April 8, 2025 | Maxine Joselow

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The president will direct agencies to boost coal leasing, mining and exports. But these steps are unlikely to usher in a coal renaissance.

President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order Tuesday aimed at boosting the struggling U.S. coal industry, according to White House officials.

Flanked by coal miners wearing hard hats at the White House, Trump will direct federal agencies to loosen various restrictions on coal mining, leasing and exports. He will instruct the Interior Department to resume coal leasing on millions of acres of public lands, and he will order the Energy Department and other agencies to study whether more coal-fired power plants can supply electricity for artificial intelligence data centers.

These directives, however, are unlikely to usher in a coal renaissance. Domestic coal production has declined dramatically in recent years because of market forces that have driven down the price of natural gas and renewable energy — the same market forces that are now raising the risk of a recession caused by Trump’s tariff policies.

Trump on Tuesday will also task the newly created National Energy Dominance Council with designating coal as a mineral, a White House official said. This classification will allow coal to benefit from a prior executive order that directed agencies to fast-track the permitting process for new mines on federal lands, according to the official.

“Today at 3PM, President Trump will sign an Executive Order to reinvigorate AFFORDABLE, RELIABLE, AND CLEAN COAL!” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X on Tuesday. “Coal is critical to achieving American Energy and AI Dominance.”

While the phrase “clean coal” is popular among Trump’s allies, coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel. It produces more planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions than natural gas when burned, and few companies...

[E. Pluribus Unum]

China and India are building one new coal plant per week between the two of them, and they don't worry about what comes out of the stacks.

[Sacajaweau]

Coal is such a basic fossil fuel. We have cleaners now. I’ sure China’s factories chug out “stuff” with no restraints.

[Alberta's Child]

Coal would be disappearing as an energy source in the U.S. even if there were no environmental regulations. Natural gas is so much more plentiful and cheaper to transport these days.

[struggle]

We have coal passing my little train line town for the coast every day, presumably to Germany.

[armourenthusiast]

This order can potentially SAVE the whole town of Craig, Colorado. It has both a coal mine and a huge power plant. Everything works fine but the Colorado government wants to shut them both down soon because of global warming.

[Sacajaweau]

Not if we build steel plants.

We need to Use ALL possible natural resources.

And stop using corn for fuel.

[sauropod]

bkmk

[bondsman]

Coal was the fuel that created the industrial revolution. Anthracite Coal in NE Pennsylvania is the purest and moat efficient burning coal used in heavy steel production and Electrical supply.
‘Dirty Mines’ on Amazon is the most informative book on this subject, and a great read.

[shanover]

Coal is an incredible resource that we need to keep mining for.

[bert]

The problem with coal is that presently gas is plentiful less expensive.

[Vaduz]

Don’t worry about what comes out of the stacks.

Indeed the greens didn’t say much about China and India.

[gildafarrell]

Great! That’s a slap in the face to odoofus the illegal islamic and creepy gropin’ pedophile slowjoe and nanancy pigLIESi. These jokers tried to decimate the coal industry. In fact under odoofus’ reign, coal production almost stopped.

[GenXPolymath]

Coal will never be clean it is not possible due to physics. Coal no matter how you burn it releases heavy metals in vapor form that can never be scrubbed to zero. There is no safe limits of heavy metals that persist in the biosphere and bioaccumulate up the food web. Coal can never hit the emissions of natural gas even with gasification and deep expensive syngas cleaning.

Look at the slides where they lay out what the very best gasification clean up can do. Stack scrubbers will be at least an order of magnitude worse here again its physics of burning coal loaded with metals and sulfur in oxygen and or nitrogen. The vapors are the inevitable product of combustion.

Here is actual numbers and data. Scroll down for the emissions permit requests.

https://inlandbays.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IGCC_permitting.pdf

[E. Pluribus Unum]

OMG! We’re all going to die!

[BiteYourSelf]

We will we will rock you
BOOM
BOOM.😁