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President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to boost the nation’s coal industry. The orders include efforts to save coal plants that were likely to be retired, drawing on existing emergency authority from the Federal Power Act that allows the Energy Secretary to direct any power plant to keep operating. Other emergency statutes enable the federal government to waive environmental rules implemented by states and direct the U.S. attorney general to identify and take action against state laws that address climate change, ESG initiatives, environmental justice, and carbon emissions. The executive orders also direct Energy Secretary Chris Wright to determine whether coal used in steel production is a “critical mineral,” and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to acknowledge the end of a moratorium that paused new coal leasing on federal lands and to prioritize the leasing. The coal industry would like to open up Western land, including the Powder River Basin closed by the Biden administration, for more mining, reestablish the National Coal Council, and make metallurgical coal a critical mineral, which would bolster funding and permitting. These Trump orders use coal’s massive reserve base to bolster baseload generation capacity in light of surging demand and reliability problems stemming from intermittent power sources.

Onerous regulations by the Obama and Biden administrations helped to set the decline of coal-fired power plants. The Obama administration invoked the “Clean Power Plan” in 2015, setting off a wave of coal plant retirements that continued through the first Trump presidency and into the Biden administration. The nation’s coal fleet had been the backbone of the  U.S. electricity sector, supplying more than 50% of the nation’s electricity in 2000. But onerous regulation, competition from low-cost natural gas following the fracking revolution, and massive federal subsidies for wind and solar power made it difficult for coal to compete and forced many existing coal plants to retire. About 40% of the existing U.S. coal fleet in 2015 had been retired by the end of 2024, as coal plant generating capacity of 286,000 megawatts in 2015 had dropped to 172,000 megawatts in January 2025. More than 120 coal-fired generating units are expected to close within the next five years.

Even before the executive orders were signed, Trump’s EPA had created an avenue for coal-fired power plants to seek regulatory exemptions. One of the nation’s largest coal plants used that process — the coal-fired Colstrip power plant in Montana. Operators of the Colstrip power plant want a two-year exemption from compliance with an update to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule.

Existing U.S. coal plants only provide power to the grid about 40% of the time due to wind and solar plants being dispatched first. That number can be increased through deregulation and other measures as coal plants are capable of operating for double that amount of time. Longer times of operation would reduce their costs as more operating time spreads those costs over more hours.

A number of blue states have laws that are onerous to fossil fuels, including coal. President Trump cited laws in New York and Vermont that fine fossil fuel companies for their carbon dioxide emissions, California’s cap-and-trade policy, and lawsuits by states that have sought to hold energy companies accountable for global warming, which have been found to be unjustified, but divert energy companies from their mission to fight the lawsuits.

After Trump signed the orders, Wright’s energy department made $200 billion in financing available for its loan programs office including for new coal technologies.

Electricity Demand is Increasing

U.S. electricity demand is rising for the first time in two decades due to growth in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrencies. The president’s vow to make America the world leader in energy-intensive AI technology is also a reason to keep coal plants online. According to the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, data centers’ power demands could increase from 4.4 percent of the nation’s electricity output in 2023 to between 6 and 12 percent by 2028.

Grid Reliability

The reliability of the nation’s electrical grid is also in question, with large amounts of wind and solar power causing instability. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has warned that retirements of coal- and natural gas-plants could create power shortages, particularly in winter when wind and solar power output is poor. While solar power installations have soared due to massive subsidies in the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act and state mandates for renewable power, many projects have been waiting for years to connect to the power grid as grid operators are proceeding with caution to maintain reliability.

NERC’s long-range reliability report estimated that up to 115,000 megawatts of fossil fuel power plant capacity could retire between now and 2034, pushing power reserves below safe limits in most of the country. That compares to its estimates that power demand, at the winter peak level, could grow by up to 149,000 megawatts in this decade, due primarily to demand from data centers.

Conclusion

President Trump has signed executive orders to boost the coal industry, which once was the backbone of the U.S. generating system. Despite coal’s ability to provide reliable baseload power, massive subsidies and state mandates have resulted in significant solar and wind power additions that are causing grid instability. To protect the grid and to help meet rising electricity demand from AI data centers, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrency, President Trump is using emergency powers to keep existing coal plants online. He is also reopening western lands to coal leasing, looking to name metallurgical coal as a critical mineral, and ordering the attorney general to investigate states that have implemented laws against fossil fuel use so that the federal government could waive those rules.

President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to boost the nation’s coal industry. The orders include efforts to save coal plants that were likely to be retired, drawing on existing emergency authority from the Federal Power Act that allows the Energy Secretary to direct any power plant to keep operating. Other emergency statutes enable the federal government to waive environmental rules implemented by states and direct the U.S. attorney general to identify and take action against state laws that address climate change, ESG initiatives, environmental justice, and carbon emissions. The executive orders also direct Energy Secretary Chris Wright to determine whether coal used in steel production is a “critical mineral,” and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to acknowledge the end of a moratorium that paused new coal leasing on federal lands and to prioritize the leasing. The coal industry would like to open up Western land, including the Powder River Basin closed by the Biden administration, for more mining, reestablish the National Coal Council, and make metallurgical coal a critical mineral, which would bolster funding and permitting. These Trump orders use coal’s massive reserve base to bolster baseload generation capacity in light of surging demand and reliability problems stemming from intermittent power sources.

Onerous regulations by the Obama and Biden administrations helped to set the decline of coal-fired power plants. The Obama administration invoked the “Clean Power Plan” in 2015, setting off a wave of coal plant retirements that continued through the first Trump presidency and into the Biden administration. The nation’s coal fleet had been the backbone of the  U.S. electricity sector, supplying more than 50% of the nation’s electricity in 2000. But onerous regulation, competition from low-cost natural gas following the fracking revolution, and massive federal subsidies for wind and solar power made it difficult for coal to compete and forced many existing coal plants to retire. About 40% of the existing U.S. coal fleet in 2015 had been retired by the end of 2024, as coal plant generating capacity of 286,000 megawatts in 2015 had dropped to 172,000 megawatts in January 2025. More than 120 coal-fired generating units are expected to close within the next five years.

Even before the executive orders were signed, Trump’s EPA had created an avenue for coal-fired power plants to seek regulatory exemptions. One of the nation’s largest coal plants used that process — the coal-fired Colstrip power plant in Montana. Operators of the Colstrip power plant want a two-year exemption from compliance with an update to EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule.

Existing U.S. coal plants only provide power to the grid about 40% of the time due to wind and solar plants being dispatched first. That number can be increased through deregulation and other measures as coal plants are capable of operating for double that amount of time. Longer times of operation would reduce their costs as more operating time spreads those costs over more hours.

A number of blue states have laws that are onerous to fossil fuels, including coal. President Trump cited laws in New York and Vermont that fine fossil fuel companies for their carbon dioxide emissions, California’s cap-and-trade policy, and lawsuits by states that have sought to hold energy companies accountable for global warming, which have been found to be unjustified, but divert energy companies from their mission to fight the lawsuits.

After Trump signed the orders, Wright’s energy department made $200 billion in financing available for its loan programs office including for new coal technologies.

Electricity Demand is Increasing

U.S. electricity demand is rising for the first time in two decades due to growth in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrencies. The president’s vow to make America the world leader in energy-intensive AI technology is also a reason to keep coal plants online. According to the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, data centers’ power demands could increase from 4.4 percent of the nation’s electricity output in 2023 to between 6 and 12 percent by 2028.

Grid Reliability

The reliability of the nation’s electrical grid is also in question, with large amounts of wind and solar power causing instability. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has warned that retirements of coal- and natural gas-plants could create power shortages, particularly in winter when wind and solar power output is poor. While solar power installations have soared due to massive subsidies in the Democrat-passed Inflation Reduction Act and state mandates for renewable power, many projects have been waiting for years to connect to the power grid as grid operators are proceeding with caution to maintain reliability.

NERC’s long-range reliability report estimated that up to 115,000 megawatts of fossil fuel power plant capacity could retire between now and 2034, pushing power reserves below safe limits in most of the country. That compares to its estimates that power demand, at the winter peak level, could grow by up to 149,000 megawatts in this decade, due primarily to demand from data centers.

Conclusion

President Trump has signed executive orders to boost the coal industry, which once was the backbone of the U.S. generating system. Despite coal’s ability to provide reliable baseload power, massive subsidies and state mandates have resulted in significant solar and wind power additions that are causing grid instability. To protect the grid and to help meet rising electricity demand from AI data centers, electric vehicles, and cryptocurrency, President Trump is using emergency powers to keep existing coal plants online. He is also reopening western lands to coal leasing, looking to name metallurgical coal as a critical mineral, and ordering the attorney general to investigate states that have implemented laws against fossil fuel use so that the federal government could waive those rules.

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*This article was adapted from content originally published by the Institute for Energy Research.