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President Donald Trump followed through with his pledge to boost the nation’s declining <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1312689/us-coal-mining-selected-figures/#:~:text=Selected%20figures%20on%20the%20coal%20industry%20in%20the%20United%20States%202021%2D2024&text=As%20of%20March%202024%2C%20the,dollars%20as%20of%20March%202024.">$28 billion coal-mining industry</a> by signing four executive orders designed to keep coal-fired power plants operating and to encourage more mining to fuel accelerating electricity demand.

"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 in the White House before he signed four executive actions Tuesday on a stage shared with about 15 helmeted coal-miners in overalls.

Counting Tuesday’s four coal-related directives, Trump has now issued <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/executive-orders/donald-trump/2025">115 executive actions</a> since taking office on Jan. 20, including about two dozen related to energy in implementing his policy to use the nation’s abundant fossil fuels—oil, natural gas, coal—to generate affordable power while simultaneously exporting liquified natural gas to pare down the $37 trillion federal debt.

Those predecessor actions, eliminating more than 200 rules, regulations, and executive orders issued under the Biden administration, enabled the three coal-related orders issued Tuesday, which grant regulatory relief to 47 companies operating 66 power plants, "making them available for coal production almost in the immediate future," Trump said.

"We're slashing unnecessary regulations that targeted the beautiful clean coal," the president said. "We will rapidly expedite leases for coal mining on federal lands … and we'll streamline permitting. We will end the government bias against coal."

Trump, after personally greeting nine senators and a dozen House representatives—all Republicans, most from energy-producing Rocky Mountain states—said he would authorize the use of the Defense Production Act under his national energy emergency declaration "to turbocharge coal-mining in America."

The president also pledged that his administration "is going to do something that's very different. This was my idea from about 15 minutes before I got up here. We're going to give a guarantee that the business will not be terminated by the ups-and-downs of the world of politics" by "making it hell" to rescind approvals for coal operations.

Under the orders, coal is defined as a "mineral,” not as a “nonrenewable fossil fuel.” Coal is an organic sedimentary rock formed from compressed plant matter over millions of years, not geologically considered a mineral.

The orders direct federal agencies to identify coal resources on federal lands, lift barriers to coal mining, and prioritize coal leasing on U.S. lands, requiring Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to “acknowledge the end” of an Obama-era 2008 moratorium that paused coal leasing on federal lands.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, there are now <a href="https://www.blm.gov/programs/energy-and-minerals/coal/coal-data" target="_blank" rel="noopener">279 coal leases</a> spanning nearly 422,000 acres of federal public lands. As of Jan. 1, 2024, the U.S. Energy Information Administration <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/how-much-coal-is-left.php#:~:text=EIA%20estimates%20U.S.%20recoverable%20coal,58%25%20is%20underground%20mineable%20coal.">estimates</a> U.S. recoverable coal reserves at about 250 billion short tons, of which about 58 percent is underground mineable coal.

The orders direct all federal agencies “to end all discriminatory policies against the coal industry” and promote grid reliability by ensuring grid policies are not based on progressive policies that "discriminate against secure sources of power, like coal and other fossil fuels."

Under the orders, the Department of Justice is instructed “to vigorously pursue and investigate” anti-fossil fuel state policies that are considered illegal or unconstitutional, while federal agencies must promote coal and accelerate development of coal technologies.

According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s State of the Markets <a href="https://www.ferc.gov/media/state-market-report-2024">Report</a> for 2024, the biggest additional generation on the grid in 2024 was wind and solar. “Utility-scale solar generation increased by 32 percent, and wind generation increased by 7.7 percent in the lower 48 states compared to 2023,” it states.

Coal-fired power declined more than 2 percent in 2024, continuing a decades-long decline. Coal generated 50 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2005 but just 14 percent in 2024, according to the report.

A coal miner walks past mining equipment at the Sufco Coal Mine, 30 miles east of Salina, Utah, on May 28, 2014. (George Frey/Getty Images)

<h2>Coal Retirements Halted</h2>
As of March 2024, the United States coal mining industry employed more than 33,000 people, slightly more than half it did in June 2022, according to the <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES1021210001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,</a> which, by comparison, notes solar energy employed nearly 280,000.

With no new coal-fired plants going online since 2013, those retirements accelerated under the Biden administration’s ‘<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/biden-harris-administration-finalizes-suite-standards-reduce-pollution-fossil-fuel">Clean Power Plant 2.0</a>’ and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/greenhouse-gas-standards-and-guidelines-fossil-fuel-fired-power">Greenhouse Gas (GHG) rules</a>, which required them to trim emissions by 90 percent or be shut down.

As a result of the emissions regulations—and, quite simply, age—the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) <a href="https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_04_01.html">documented</a> in late 2024 that 173 of nearly 390 coal-fired units in 33 states were set to close by 2030. Of those remaining, the average age is 53, and 118 are at least 40 years old.

In March, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced he was reviewing both “power plant rules” under the president’s energy emergency declaration with the implied intent to keep them operating.

Many utilities were already exploring ways to keep coal-fired plants operating.

America's Power CEO Michelle Bloodworth told state and regional utility commissioners during a February policy summit in Washington that since 2022, utilities in 19 states have delayed planned retirements of about 50 coal-fired plants because of “clogged interconnection queues” for natural gas hookups and rising electricity demand.

In October 2024, Wolverine Fuels reopened Utah's Fossil Rock mine, which had been shuttered for 23 years. Although there aren’t any pending permits to open new coal mines or build new coal-fired power plants, electric utilities are considering extending contracts with coal providers.

Federal agencies, even before Trump’s Tuesday orders, were implementing the president’s directives, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<a target="_blank" rel="noopener"> identifying 688 energy projects</a> eligible for rocket-docket regulatory reviews in late February.

Among those projects are permits related to four coal mine operations: two in Pennsylvania, one in West Virginia, and one in Alabama.

The Bureau of Land Management recently approved a southeast Montana coal mine’s waiver from the “soot standards” to expand its operations. On April 2, the bureau agreed to consider Freedom Mine in North Dakota—the nation's largest lignite coal mine—to extend its operating permit from 2031 to 2045.

“Already under our leadership, the Department of Interior has approved the expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in Montana, supporting 280 coal mining jobs and unlocking over 40 million tons of coal," Trump said. "And there's more to come in the states of Wyoming, Alabama, Utah, North Dakota, and many others, [including] West Virginia."

From <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/trump-seeks-coal-rebound-to-meet-booming-electricity-demand-5838740">The Epoch Times</a>

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Trump Signs Executive Orders to Revive ‘Abandoned’ Coal industry