As projections of U.S. electricity demand rise sharply, President Donald Trump is looking to coal — historically a dominant force in the U.S. energy economy — as a key part of the solution.
In an April 2025 executive order, for instance, Trump used emergency powers to direct the Department of Energy to order the owners of coal-fired power plants that were slated to be shut down to keep the plants running.
He also directed federal agencies to “identify coal resources on federal lands” and ease the process for leasing and mining coal on those lands. In addition, he issued orders to exclude coal-related projects from environmental reviews, promote coal exports and potentially subsidize the production of coal as a national security resource.
But there remain limits to the president’s power to slow the declining use of coal in the United States. And while efforts continue to overcome these limits and prop up coal, mining coal remains an ongoing danger to wo
