The United States has moved away from coal-fired power plants as its primary source of electricity since their peak in the 2000s.
President Donald Trump said on Monday that he was authorizing his administration to use coal-fired power plants for energy production to counter China’s economic advantage.
In a Truth Social post, Trump stated that the nation’s coal industry had been “held captive by environmental extremists,” which he said had allowed countries such as China to gain an economic advantage over the United States by opening hundreds of coal-fired power plants.
Trump stated that he would move to authorize his administration “to immediately begin producing energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL,” but did not provide further details.
The move would mark a major reversal in U.S. environmental policy, as the country has shifted away from coal, which was its primary fuel for electricity generation in the 2000s, toward lower-cost alternatives such as natural gas and renewable energy.
As of 2023, coal made up about 15 percent of the power generated in the United States, a significant decline from 51 percent in 2000, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
After taking office on Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to review existing regulations that restricted the use of domestic energy resources—particularly coal, hydropower, and nuclear energy resources—and declared a national energy emergency to expedite the development of the nation’s energy infrastructure.
Trump stated in his order that “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations have impeded the development of these resources, limited the generation of reliable and affordable electricity, reduced job creation, and inflicted high energy costs upon our citizens.”
To fulfill Trump’s objectives, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin said on March 12 that the agency would take steps to roll back several environmental regulations in what he called the “largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.”
The EPA outlined its planned regulatory rollbacks in a series of statements, targeting rules or suites of rules initially authored by the agency and published during the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, which it considers to be the origin of “trillions in regulatory costs.”
