Op-Ed: Daniel Turner: President Trump and America’s coal industry are rising from the ashes together
The split screen was perfect: as well-heeled Beltway insiders were fretting over their stock portfolios and 401(k) plans, President Donald Trump was welcoming coal miners clad in hard hats to the White House. It was more than just a symbolic photo op. The president marked the occasion by signing four executive orders aimed at boosting the coal industry, including one directing federal agencies to repeal any regulations that “discriminated” against coal production.
What a welcome and long overdue turn of events.
Perhaps no group of people have been maligned, cast aside and yes — discriminated against — by politicians than those in the coal industry. They have been villainized by the climate extremists. Rich men in faraway cities like Michael Bloomberg and John Kerry have outright called for their industry to end — their livelihoods be damned, let alone their retirement accounts.
Take these oligarchs literally and seriously. In 2019, Bloomberg donated half a billion dollars to an explicit push to shutter every coal plant, while Kerry has sneered at those who stood to lose their jobs in the energy “transition” and suggested they “learn to code.”
There are three reasons to account for, and celebrate, the sudden change of pace from President Trump.
First, our country needs more power from more sources to meet surging energy demand, and not just because tech companies are increasing the construction of AI data centers. After four long years of the Biden administration doing everything to sideline traditional forms of energy and promising to “end fossil fuel,” we need more power and we need it now. Elected officials should no longer be in the business of favoring one form of power over another.
In 2011, just a decade and a half ago, the U.S. generated nearly half of its electricity from coal. Last year, that figure had fallen to just 15 percent. As Chris Wright, President Trump’s Energy Secretary, put it, “misguided policies from previous administrations have stifled this critical American industry.” All the while, China accelerated its coal production, which accounts for nearly half of the entire planet’s coal-produced electricity. Construction of coal plants in China reached a 10-year high in February.
Second, President Trump has his finger on the pulse of rural America. These communities supported him by a whopping 30 point margin last November, and they are counting on him to have their back in the White House. It’s no accident that since the turn of the century, West Virginia, the nation’s second-largest coal producing state, has morphed from a Democrat stronghold into a state where Republicans control 123 out of 134 seats in the state house and every single congressional seat. With Biden and his predecessor Barack Obama, who in 2008 vowed to “bankrupt” coal plants by forcing them to pay “a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted” who can blame the good people of West Virginia?
In chronicling the America First agenda during a recent visit to a steel mill in western Pennsylvania, the intrepid Salena Zito described her encounter with a plant safety chairman who told her that when a plant closes, “it’s not just the product they make here that goes. It’s also the heart of the community — from the churches to the schools to the tax base — that goes."
Shuttering coal facilities extends beyond job losses, as painful as they are. It tears at the community identity, tax base, revenue, and the very fabric that holds these places together. These communities have weathered many storms, but the war on coal has been particularly devastating. These are the forgotten men and women who powered Trump’s winning coalition, and he hasn’t forgotten their support.
Finally, the coal industry and President Trump are kindred spirits in a way. Both have been discounted, looked down on, written off and dismissed by the so-called smart people. Both overcame long odds and stacked decks — one in the form of extreme environmental laws, the other from never-ending lawfare, assassination attempts, and witch-hunts.
Just as few thought Trump could rise from the ashes and return to the White House, so too can a once proud coal industry with more actions like the ones this week.
Let’s hope it’s a sign of things to come. America’s energy, geopolitical and economic security depend on it.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF.
