Articles

By U.S. Reps. Troy Balderson and Harriet Hageman

As part of President Trump’s effort to unleash American energy dominance, his administration recently took a much-needed and long-overdue step: ending the war on domestic coal. 

While Democrats in Washington, DC, and radical environmental activists have long sought to write off coal as an energy source of the past, the reality is that clean American coal stands ready to help power our future.  The United States has the largest coal reserves in the world, but heavy-handed regulations and government intervention have held back coal’s potential.  Thankfully, those days are now over. 

In recent years, China has permitted two new power plants per week while the U.S. has shut down coal-fired electric generation at an alarming pace.  This is not the result of free market economics or the success of intermittent energy sources – it’s quite the opposite.  From the Paris Climate Agreement to leasing prohibitions and the EPA’s attempts to shutter reliable baseload power plants under Presidents Obama and Biden, failed policies have arbitrarily hindered America’s coal industry, harming our energy workers, raising costs for families and consumers, and threatening the reliability of our electric grid.

Our energy landscape continues to change rapidly, and only through sound policy decisions can we keep the lights on while ensuring America’s economic competitiveness.  With energy demand rising at historic levels, particularly driven by the advent of artificial intelligence and the data centers needed to power it, experts are now sounding the alarm that without reliable baseload power, the U.S. is headed for a grid reliability crisis.  Now that President Trump has ended the Green New Scam, operators are canceling plans to prematurely shutter coal plants, and through innovation, America will continue to lead the world in environmentally responsible energy production. 

No American has ever asked for rolling blackouts or expensive utility bills, yet that’s exactly what anti-coal policies have delivered.  Families, businesses, and manufacturers want affordable and reliable energy.  When California’s grid is strained under the state’s onerous renewable portfolio mandates, coal imported from other western states serves as a backstop.  This is why it’s so perplexing that the Biden administration wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing unreliable “green” energy sources while banning coal leasing in Wyoming, which produces more than 40% of the nation’s coal. 

This week, the Republican Study Committee hosted Secretary Doug Burgum during its weekly Member meeting to hear about the administration’s progress in meeting the energy needs of our future. As the Secretary and Congressional Republicans know all too well, the self-inflicted wound the Biden administration inflicted on our country through the passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act served only to increase energy prices, artificially alter the market, and harm working families.

President Trump and his team at the Energy Dominance Council are putting an end to this madness.  Through these executive actions, federal agencies will no longer discriminate against coal production.  These actions will expand coal leasing, streamline burdensome permitting processes for coal projects, end job-crushing regulations, and unleash American coal exports.  This initiative will ensure that coal is leveraged as a critical tool in promoting our energy security and powering our economy.  In line with these efforts, the House Natural Resources Committee advanced its portion of Republicans’ reconciliation bill, which includes provisions to expedite coal leasing, consistent with the COAL Act. 

The American people suffered from record inflation under the previous administration and elected a Republican trifecta to Washington for a reason.  Republicans in Congress are working hard with President Trump to deliver a new golden age of American energy abundance and codify his pro-energy agenda into law.