Trump directs Pentagon to purchase coal-fired electricity
Feb. 12 (UPI) — President Donald Trump has directed the Pentagon to purchase coal-fired electricity to boost domestic coal production, a move that has drawn staunch criticism from energy and environmental experts.
Trump issued the directive via an executive order that he signed Thursday at the end of a White House ceremony attended by coal executives called “The Champion of Coal Event.”
“We’re going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now,” he said. “And it’s going to be less expensive and actually much more effective than what we have been using for many, many years. And again, with the environmental progress that’s been made on coal, it’s going to be just as clean.”
The executive order directs the Department of Defense to approve agreements with coal-fired power facilities to serve its installations and other mission-critical facilities.
The order aligns with Trump’s domestic policy focus of reinvigorating the U.S. coal industry, which has declined over recent years due to environmental concerns.
“Kentucky coal is BACK — and it’s because President Trump fights for American energy,” Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said in a statement.
Barr was at the White House for the ceremony, and said in a recorded statement that the Trump administration was ending the “war on coal” waged by the previous Democratic presidencies of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
“We’re putting our coal miners back to work to make America energy dominant again,” he said in a recorded statement, while describing Trump’s executive order as “great.”
During the ceremony at the East Room of the White House, Trump was given a trophy inscribed with the words “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal” by the Washington Coal Club lobby group.
After receiving the trophy, which is shaped like a miner, Trump signed the executive order.
While the Trump administration and Republicans champion the resource as “beautiful clean coal,” energy economists and environmental advocates broadly describe coal as a costly and highly polluting power source.
“Rather than helping people with their crippling electrical bills, Donald Trump is illegally bailing out his coal industry buddies with precious taxpayer dollars,” Laurie Williams, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said in a statement.
“As energy bills and hospital bills stack up for everyday families, Americans have one man to blame: Donald Trump — the undisputed champion of expensive energy and deadly pollution.”
Julie McNamara, associate policy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, lambasted the executive order as a wast of time, money and opportunity.
She said there are cheaper, cleaner and more efficient options at the president’s disposal, but he chose coal while ending development of new solar and wind projects and stopping investment to build out a modern grid infrastructure.
“Reality doesn’t lie: coal is a rapidly dwindling relic of the past, not a solution for the future,” McNamara said in a statement.
“The Trump administration’s failings come with real consequences,” she said, adding that forcing the use of aging coal plants risks power outages and will increase electricity costs.
Former Environmental Protection Agency scientist and vice president of federal policy Matthew Davis similarly said this plan risks driving up energy prices for Americans.
“Coal power not only has one of the highest costs of any energy source, but also has the worst reliability record of any form of energy, with twice as many unplanned shutdowns and interruptions in generation as wind power,” he said in a statement.
“Instead of forcing the government to waste taxpayer dollars on dirty outdated coal, we should be focusing on increasing access to clean, reliable energy sources like wind and solar that are the fastest, cheapest way to deploy energy onto the grid.”