President Trump announced that he was authorizing his administration to produce coal-fired power as a means of national and economic security.
“After years of being held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals, and Thugs, allowing other Countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous Economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants, I am authorizing my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal generates about 16% of electricity.
Trump’s call for the fossil fuel energy comes as he declared a “national energy emergency” in January.
“We need a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy to drive our Nation’s manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, and defense industries, and to sustain the basics of modern life and military preparedness,” the January order said. “Caused by the harmful and shortsighted policies of the previous administration, our Nation’s inadequate energy supply and infrastructure causes and makes worse the high energy prices that devastate Americans, particularly those living on low- and fixed-incomes.”
The call for coal-powered energy further comes as Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin said the agency would work to “unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners to advance our shared mission.”
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum similarly called for closed coal-fired plants to be reopened. “Under the national energy emergency, which President Trump has declared, we’ve got to keep every coal plant open,” he said during an interview with Bloomberg. “And if there have been units at a coal plant that have been shut down, we need to bring those back.”
