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President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is authorizing coal energy production in the U.S. to accelerate America’s advantage over China and other nations.
The president shared the news in a post to his Truth Social account concerning the new America First energy effort.
“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,” President Trump wrote.
Coal currently makes up about 15 percent of America’s power generation, down from over 50 percent in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Bloomberg reported.
The announcement comes following Trump’s first-day executive order declaring a national energy emergency.
“The integrity and expansion of our Nation’s energy infrastructure —- from coast to coast -— is an immediate and pressing priority for the protection of the United States’ national and economic security. It is imperative that the Federal government puts the physical and economic wellbeing of the American people first,” Trump’s order stated.
Interior Secretary Doug Bergum also called for the nation to restart closed coal plants last week during an interview with Bloomberg News.
“I think as part of the national energy emergency which President Trump has declared we’ve got to keep every plant open. And if there have been units at a coal plant that have been shut down, we need to bring those back on,” he said.
“We can stop death by regulation,” he said. “Part of that we can do by taking a close look at some of the actual legality of some of the rule-making that was perpetrated against these industries.”
Bergum previously told a Senate committee in January that “clean coal” could power America’s AI growth and other power needs across the nation.
“This is part of a larger crisis our nation is facing around electricity. We have a shortage of electricity, and especially we have a shortage of baseload,” Burgum told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Without baseload, we’re going to lose the AI arms race to China. And if we lose the AI arms race to China, then that’s got direct impacts on our national security in the future of this country.”