President Trump Celebrates His Commitment to Championing Dirty Coal Power

Today, coal executives gave the president a trophy naming him the ‘Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal’ as he announced federal funding to support aging, polluting coal power plants.

At today’s event at the White House, the president also signed an executive order instructing the Department of Defense to begin prioritizing the preservation of dirty coal plants. Most of the remaining coal power plants in the U.S. were built decades ago and require significant and costly investments to continue operations. In addition to harming our health and climate, coal is often unreliable in winter storms, dependent on deliveries of coal by rail. During the recent winter storm, electricity production from coal, gas, and oil struggled.

Christie Hicks, Earthjustice Managing Attorney, issued the following statement:

“Trump bought himself this award with taxpayer dollars. The president again proposes to invest in antiquated coal power plants and plans to force our modern military to rely on a 19th century fuel. Taxpayers will be paying for this twice — in increased costs for electricity for the Department of Defense and the bailouts to keep those crumbling coal power plants running. The military itself has found shifting from fossil fuels to renewables would harden it against resource shortages and cyberattacks.

“The truth is that coal and other fossil fuels threaten our security as well as our health. Utilities across the country are retiring coal plants because burning rocks to generate steam to spin turbines to generate electricity is expensive compared to operating clean energy such as wind and solar paired with batteries.”