President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to increase coal energy production in the United States and “designate coal as a ‘mineral.’”
According to a White House fact sheet, Trump’s executive order “directs the Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council to designate coal as a ‘mineral’ under Executive Order 14241, entitling coal to all of the benefits of that prior Order.” The White House added that the executive order “requires agencies to rescind any agency policies that seek to transition the Nation away from coal production or otherwise establish preferences against coal as a generation resource.”
Announcing his executive order on Tuesday, Trump said that his administration was taking “historic action” to benefit “American workers, miners, families, and consumers.”
“We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all,” Trump said, adding that the executive order would “put the miners back to work” in the United States.
The president’s executive order on “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry,” requires federal agencies to “identify coal resources on Federal lands, lift barriers to coal mining, and prioritize coal leasing on those lands.”
Trump’s executive order explained that despite the production of coal-fired electricity being “cleaner than ever,” the Biden-Harris administration “waged war on coal.” In contrast with the Biden-Harris administration, Trump noted in Tuesday’s executive order, “Coal will be critical to meeting the rise in electricity demand due to a resurgence of domestic manufacturing and the construction of Al data processing centers.”
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In a statement obtained by Fox News, Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed that people in the United States “need more energy” and that the Trump administration’s Energy Department is working to meet the demand for more energy by “unleashing supply of affordable, reliable, secure energy sources — including coal.”
Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox News on Tuesday that America’s “Golden Age is here” and emphasized that under the Trump administration, the United States is “starting to ‘Mine, Baby, Mine’ for clean American coal.”
In a Tuesday press release, Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) celebrated the president’s executive order, saying, “President Trump is the first president in my lifetime to highlight the critical need for coal to power our economy and ensure national security. Today’s executive order confirms our new Golden Age will be coal-fired!”
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