President Donald Trump on Tuesday took aim at reviving the nation’s flailing coal power fleet and mining sector, fulfilling industry wish lists and alarming conservation groups who warn prices and public health threats will skyrocket.
Flanked by miners donning hard hats at the White House, Trump blasted the “green new scam” and lauded “beautiful clean coal” before vowing to expand domestic mining and use of coal, a move he’s repeatedly said is necessary to feed the growth of energy-hungry data centers. Trump also vowed to build new coal plants and put miners back to work.
“We’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” Trump said. “China’s opening two plants every week.”
Trump signed a total of four executive orders, including one multifaceted measure meant to bolster the coal sector, which the president and his administration have said suffered under the Biden administration. A White House official said the president believes U.S coal resources are vast, with a “current estimated value in the trillions of dollars.” The text of the order was not yet available at press time.
The president at the White House event also revealed that he signed a separate order earlier in the day to ensure coal-fired power plants are always available to produce power, casting wind and solar as unreliable. The move, widely expected, sets the stage for agencies to dip into power under the Federal Power Act to keep plants operating for reliability reasons.
Other orders launched a Department of Justice probe into regulations affecting coal plants and halted rules that the administration believes are unfairly hampering coal-fired power generation. The Trump administration is also taking action to support a specific plant in Arizona and offering up “immediate” relief to 47 companies operating 66 coal plants across the nation, Trump said.
The administration has said it’s pushing for more coal to power the proliferation of new artificial intelligence data centers in the United States.
In one of his orders, Trump directed the chair of the National Energy Dominance Council to designate coal as a “mineral” under Executive Order 14241, “entitling coal to all of the benefits of that prior Order.”
Trump’s order also directs Energy Secretary Chris Wright to determine whether coal used to produce steel should be defined as “critical” under the Energy Act of 2020 — a designation that would open coal to both streamlined permitting and federal funding.
The president’s order “directs relevant agencies to identify coal resources on Federal lands, lift barriers to coal mining, and prioritize coal leasing on those lands,” and requires agencies to scrap any policies that push the nation to shift away from coal, the White House official said.
The president also took aim at regulations affecting coal, and through his order directed the White House Council on Environmental Quality to help agencies in adopting “coal-related categorical exclusions” under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.
He also directed the secretary of the Interior to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era moratorium on coal leasing on federal lands, which has repeatedly been slapped down in court.
The White House official said Trump is pushing to promote coal and coal technology exports, facilitate international offtake agreements for U.S. coal, and accelerate development of coal technologies.
Trump during the press conference, which included a number of Republican senators, revealed that he had planned to make Burgum the energy secretary. Burgum suggested Chris Wright, who is now leading the department, Trump said.
The president said the order would slash regulations targeting coal, expedite leasing of federal lands for coal mining, streamline permitting, end government bias against coal and “unlock sweeping authority” under the Defense Production Act to supercharge coal mining, noting it’s also a source of critical minerals. Trump also said he had a last-minute idea to give the sector a legal guarantee to protect investments and jobs.
“We’re going to give a guarantee that the business won’t be terminated by the ups and downs of politics,” he said.
A ‘stark shift’
Coal boosters welcomed the move, which drew immediate pushback from conservation and climate groups.
Rich Nolan, the president and CEO of the National Mining Association, which represents both hard rock and coal miners, said in a statement that Trump’s orders arrive as the nation’s grid operators and energy regulators face an “electricity supply crisis” and exploding demand tied to AI.
“It’s a stark shift from the prior administration’s punitive regulatory agenda, hostile energy policies and unlawful land grabs,” said Nolan.
And yet it’s unclear whether Trump’s moves will be a sufficient lifeline for a sector that’s seen a growing string of coal plant closures and shift away from fossil fuels amid competition from cheap gas and renewables.
Conservation groups cast the order as a threat to public health poised to accelerate climate change and argued that coal production on federal land has fallen steeply in recent decades. According to federal data, coal companies as of 2023 held 279 federal leases on almost 422,000 acres of public land. That’s a sharp dip from 489 leases on more than 730,000 acres of public land in 1990.
They also cited research showing that the majority of the nation’s coal plants are more expensive to operate than relying on renewables.
“Donald Trump is hell-bent on dragging the United States back to the 19th century, complete with robber barons, smokestacks, crippling tariffs, and measles,” said Rachael Hamby, policy director for the Center for Western Priorities. “The free market has already made it clear that renewable energy sources are a cheaper and healthier path to meet America’s energy needs. It’s time to stop picking winners and losers and join us in the 21st century.”
Jason Rylander of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute added, “Forcing old coal plants to keep spewing pollution into our air and water means more cancer, more asthma and more premature deaths.”
Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous warned Trump’s policies will raise monthly energy bills for everyday Americans, noting that renewable energy costs 30 percent less than coal for the same energy output. Sierra Club since 2009 has been advocating for the closure of almost 400 coal plants in the U.S.
“Forcing coal plants to stay online will cost Americans more, get more people sick with respiratory and heart conditions and lead to more premature deaths,” said Jealous. “Donald Trump’s plan is as despicable as it is reckless and ill conceived.”
