Trump will sign executive order in bid to keep coal alive

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday designed to revitalize coal-fired power plants and the American coal industry, according to a White House official.

The forthcoming order will direct administration officials to reclassify coal as a mineral under the terms of Executive Order 14241, which Trump signed in March to unlock and unleash the country’s coal resources, as well as take numerous other steps to boost the ailing industry, according to the White House official. Coal output and its use to generate power have both declined in the U.S. in recent years due in large part to aggressive regulation and climate policy from the Obama and Biden administrations.

‘We Get Overlooked’: Coal Country Not Buying Biden’s ‘Just Transition’ To Green Energyhttps://t.co/IdVLKlGObx

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The order will instruct the relevant agencies to identify coal deposits on federally-controlled lands, and it will also direct Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to end the “Jewell moratorium,” which was a moratorium on new federal coal lease sales first imposed by Obama Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, according to the White House official. The forthcoming executive action will also direct the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to help other agencies implement National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) exclusions for coal-related projects and activity.

Other aspects of the executive order will include mobilizing the government to help find foreign buyers for exported American coal and advance coal-related technology development, according to the White House official.

The forecasted increase in U.S. power demand driven by the anticipated artificial intelligence (AI) boom is a major motivating factor behind the Tuesday executive order, according to a White House official. McKinsey & Company projects that U.S. power demand will grow by nearly 12% by 2030 compared to 2023 demand, and that AI data centers will consume up to four times as much power by 2030 as they did in 2023.

As of April 2023, the U.S. was on track to shutter about half of its coal-fired capacity by 2026, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

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