Trump to Sign Executive Order Reinvigorating Coal Industry

President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order Tuesday to “reinvigorate affordable, reliable, and clean coal,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on X.

“Coal is critical to achieving American energy and [artificial intelligence] dominance,” Leavitt said.

The order directs the chair of the National Energy Dominance Council to designate coal as a “mineral” under Executive Order 14241, which called for immediate measures to facilitate and expedite mineral production, The Daily Signal has learned.

“President Trump is delivering on the mandate Americans gave him last November by empowering different forms of domestic energy to drive down costs, increase domestic energy supply, and improve our grid security as we pioneer the path to become the Artificial Intelligence capital of the world,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.

The order pushes for using coal to power new artificial intelligence data because of coal’s ability to meet the increase in electricity demand due to a resurgence of domestic manufacturing and the construction of AI data processing centers.

Trump will also direct relevant agencies to identify coal resources on federal lands, lift barriers to coal mining, and prioritize coal leasing on those lands.

The coal industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs and adds tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy each year, according to the Trump administration.

The president’s directive calls on Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to acknowledge the end of the Jewell Moratorium, which paused coal leasing on federal lands. Burgum must also determine whether coal used in the production of steel meets the definition of a “critical material” and “critical mineral” under the Energy Act of 2020, and if so, add it to the relevant lists. The Jewell Moratorium is named after Obama administration Interior Secretary Sally Jewell.

The order also requires agencies to rescind any policies that seek to transition the nation away from coal production or establish preferences against coal as an electrical generation resource.

Coal-fired electricity generation is cleaner than ever, yet the previous administration waged war on coal, the executive order asserts.

The Council on Environmental Quality must assist agencies in adopting coal-related categorical exclusions under National Environmental Policy Act, according to the order.

The Trump administration will seek to promote coal and coal technology exports, facilitate international offtake agreements for U.S. coal, and accelerate development of coal technologies.

Trump has long promised to strengthen the coal industry.

“After years of being held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals, and Thugs, allowing other Countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous Economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants,” the president said in a Truth Social post last month, “I am authorizing my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL.”