President Trump signed a flurry of executive orders Tuesday aimed at expanding the mining and burning of coal in the United States, in an effort to revive the struggling industry.
One order directs federal agencies to repeal any regulations that “discriminate” against coal production, to open new federal lands for coal mining and to explore whether coal-burning power plants could serve new A.I. data centers. Mr. Trump also said he would waive certain air-pollution restrictions adopted by the Biden administration for dozens of coal plants that were at risk of closing down.
In a move that could face legal challenges, Mr. Trump directed the Energy Department to develop a process for using emergency powers to prevent unprofitable coal plants from shutting down in order to avert power outages. Mr. Trump proposed a similar action in his first term but eventually abandoned the idea after widespread opposition.
Flanked by dozens of miners in white hard hats at the White House, Mr. Trump said he was also instructing the Justice Department to identify and fight state and local policies that were “putting our coal miners out of business.” He added that he would issue “guarantees” that future administrations could not adopt policies harmful to coal, but did not provide details.
“This is a very important day to me because we’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned despite the fact that it was the best, certainly the best in terms of power, real power,” Mr. Trump said.
In recent weeks, Mr. Trump, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, and Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, have all spoken about the importance of coal. The two cabinet members sat in the front row at the White House ceremony, which was attended by members of Congress from Wyoming, Kentucky, West Virginia and other coal-producing states.
“Beautiful clean coal,” Mr. Trump told the gathering. “Never use the word ‘coal’ unless you put ‘beautiful, clean’ before it.”
Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels when burned, and accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world’s industrial carbon dioxide emissions, the main driver of global warming. It releases other pollutants, including mercury and sulfur dioxide, that are linked to heart disease, respiratory problems and premature deaths. Coal mining and the resulting coal ash from power plants can also present environmental problems.
Over the past two decades, the use of coal has fallen precipitously in the United States, as utilities have switched to cheaper and cleaner electricity sources like natural gas, wind and solar power. That transition has been the biggest reason for the drop in U.S. emissions since 2005.
It is unclear how much Mr. Trump could reverse that decline. In 2011, the nation generated nearly half of its electricity from coal; last year, that fell to just 15 percent. Utilities have already closed hundreds of aging coal-burning units and have announced retirement dates for roughly half of the remaining plants.
In recent years, growing interest in artificial intelligence and data centers has fueled a surge in electricity demand, and utilities have decided to keep more than 50 coal-burning units open past their scheduled closure dates, according to America’s Power, an industry trade group. And as the Trump administration moves to loosen pollution limits on coal power — including regulations applied to carbon dioxide and mercury — more plants could stay open longer, or run more frequently.
“You know, we need to do the A.I., all of this new technology that’s coming on line,” Mr. Trump said on Tuesday. “We need more than double the energy, the electricity, that we currently have.”
Yet a major coal revival is unlikely, some analysts said.
“The main issue is that most of our coal plants are older and getting more expensive to run, and no one’s thinking about building new plants,” said Seth Feaster, a data analyst who focuses on coal at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a research firm. “It’s very hard to change that trajectory.”
During his first term, Mr. Trump sought to prevent unprofitable coal plants from closing, using emergency authority that is normally reserved for fleeting crises like natural disasters. But that idea brought a fierce blowback from oil and gas companies, grid operators and consumer groups, who said it would drive up electricity bills, and the administration eventually backed away from the idea.
If the idea was tried again today, it would be likely to lead to lawsuits, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. “But there’s not a lot of litigation history here,” he said. “Typically these emergency orders last for no longer than 90 days.”
Ultimately, Mr. Trump struggled to fulfill his first-term pledge of rescuing the coal industry. Despite the fact that his administration repealed numerous climate regulations and appointed a coal lobbyist to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, 75 coal-fired power plants closed, and the industry shed about 13,000 jobs during his presidency.
Coal’s decline continued under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who sought to move the country away from the fossil fuel altogether in an effort to fight climate change. Last year, his administration issued a sweeping E.P.A. rule that would have forced all of the nation’s coal plants to either install expensive equipment to capture and bury their carbon dioxide emissions or shut down by 2039.
This year, upon returning to office, Mr. Trump ordered the E.P.A. to repeal that rule. And Trump administration officials have repeatedly warned that shutting down coal plants would harm power supplies. Unlike wind and solar energy, coal plants can run at any hour of the day, making them useful when electricity demand spikes.
Some industry executives who run the nation’s electric grids have also warned that the country could face a greater risk of blackouts if too many coal plants retire too quickly, especially since power companies have faced delays in bringing new gas, wind and solar plants online, as well as in adding battery storage and transmission lines.
“For decades, most people have taken electricity and coal for granted,” said Michelle Bloodworth, chief executive of America’s Power. “This complacency has led to damaging federal and state policies that have caused the premature retirement of coal plants, thus weakening our electric grid and threatening our national security.”
Yet coal opponents say that keeping aging plants online can worsen deadly air pollution and increase energy costs. Earlier this year, PJM Interconnection, which oversees a large grid in the Mid-Atlantic, ordered a power plant that burns coal and another that burns oil to stay open until 2029, four years past their planned retirement date, to reduce the risk of power outages. The move could ultimately cost utility customers in the area of more than $720 million.
“Coal plants are old and dirty, uncompetitive and unreliable,” said Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “The Trump administration is stuck in the past, trying to make utility customers pay more for yesterday’s energy. Instead, it should be doing all it can to build the electricity grid of the future.”
