On Wednesday, a fossil-fuel lobbying group called the Washington Coal Club awarded President Trump a trophy that named him the “Undisputed Champion of Clean, Beautiful Coal.” Trump took advantage of the opportunity to take his latest shot at reviving the fortunes of the US’s most polluting source of electricity: an executive order that would make the military buy it.
Coal is the second most expensive source of power for the US grid, eclipsed by gas, wind, solar, hydro—everything other than nuclear power. It also produces the most pollution, including particulates that damage human lungs, chemicals that contribute to acid rain, and coal ash that contains many toxic metals. It also emits the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced. Prior to Trump’s return to office, the US grid had been rapidly moving away from its use, including during his first term.
Despite the long-standing Republican claims to support free markets, the second Trump administration has determined that the only way to keep coal viable is direct government intervention. Its initial attempts involved declaring an energy emergency and then using that to justify forcing coal plants slated for closure to continue operations. The emergency declaration relied on what appears to be a tenuous interpretation of the Federal Power Act, and the administration was already facing a lawsuit challenging these actions.
Today’s executive order takes a different route to propping up coal: artificially inflating demand. “The Secretary of War, in coordination with the Secretary of Energy,” the order reads, “shall seek to procure power from the United States coal generation fleet by approving long-term Power Purchase Agreements, or entering into any similar contractual agreements, with coal-fired energy production facilities to serve Department of War installations or other mission-critical facilities.”
The justification for this seems to come from an alternate reality with little relationship to the US grid. “It’s going to be less expensive and actually much more effective than what we have been using for many, many years,” Trump said at the event. “And again, with the environmental progress that’s been made on coal, it’s going to be just as clean.” None of that is true.
The executive order instead seeks to highlight coal’s supposed ability to produce a constant power output, touting the “proven reliability of our coal-fired generation fleet in providing continuous, on-demand baseload power.” This seemingly ignores Texas’ recent experience, in which coal plants contributed significantly to the collapse of the state grid, having gone offline for a wide range of reasons.
The Trump administration, however, has rarely let spurious justifications stand in the way of its preferred policy actions. The key action here is likely to be locking the military into long-term contracts that would persist beyond the end of Trump’s term in 2029.
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