Trump executive order seeks to revive coal

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at boosting the country’s sagging coal industry by removing regulatory limits on mining and declaring the fossil fuel a critical mineral.

Trump’s directive told the Energy Department to assess coal plants for restarts, and the Interior Department to locate coal deposits on federal lands, cut red tape for more mining, and speed permits for leases. He ordered his new National Energy Dominance Council to classify coal as a critical mineral, putting it on the same footing for emergency powers and funding as metals used in defence and battery production.

“All those plants that have been closed are going to be opened if they’re modern enough, or they’ll be ripped down and brand new ones will be built,” Trump said at the White House flanked by coal miners wearing hard hats. “We’re going to put the miners back to work.”

It marks part of Trump’s long-promised but uphill battle to restore a coal industry that supplies only 15% of U.S. power generation compared with more than half in 2000, according to government figures. Less expensive natural gas and increasingly affordable renewable energy have displaced what Trump called “clean, beautiful coal” and sidelined workers in towns across Appalachia and parts of the Midwest, where mining once underpinned local economies.

Environmental regulations

The shift away from coal has lowered emissions and spurred investment in cleaner energy, creating new economic opportunities. Nearly all of the electricity – 93% – to be added to the country’s power lines this year is slated to come from renewables such as solar, wind and batteries, according to government projections.

In contrast, Trump’s damn-the-torpedoes approach to American fossil fuel production, like “drill, baby, drill” for oil and gas, appears ready to steamroller state and local opposition and bend other agencies to support the move. The Environmental Protection Agency is cooperating by easing pollution regulations on coal-fired plants, including regulations on carbon dioxide and mercury.

Environmentalists were quick to slam the order as retrogressive and out of sync with an inevitable embrace of cleaner electricity such as from nuclear power and hydro. Uranium boosters might see how it’s impacting the heavy metal’s price, which is at its lowest level in 18 months – around $64.40 a lb. – after hitting a 17-year high early last year at $106 per pound.

Data centres

The technology boom, especially in artificial intelligence and the data centres needed for it, are expanding energy demand. The order has the U.S. Department of Energy and other agencies investigating reactivating coal plants and mining is to help meet the energy demand, even to supply the electricity for vehicles replacing their fossil fuel counterparts.

Donald Trump has leveraged the decline of coal as a political tool, framing himself as a champion of forgotten workers in struggling mining regions. By promising to “bring back coal” and rolling back environmental regulations, he appealed to communities hit hard by the energy transition.

His message resonated with voters who felt abandoned by globalization and overlooked by Democratic climate policies—turning coal country into a stronghold of support in both the 2016 and 2020 elections.

“Coal is the single most reliable, durable, secure and powerful form of energy,” Trump said Tuesday. “It’s cheap, incredibly efficient, high density, and it’s almost indestructible. You could drop a bomb on it, and it’s going to be there for you to use the next day, which you can’t say with any other form of energy.”