US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed executive orders to “turbocharge coal mining” in the country, seeking to “more than double” electricity production to keep up with power-hungry artificial intelligence technology.
The executive orders, which Trump signed surrounded by miners in hard hats, will lift regulatory barriers to coal extraction and suspend the planned closures of numerous coal-fired power plants across the country.
“We will end the government bias against coal,” said the Republican, who instructed the Department of Justice to identify and fight any state or local regulations that were “putting our coal miners out of business.”
Last month his administration announced a wave of environmental rollbacks targeting the green policies of his predecessor Joe Biden.
Among the most significant of them was revisiting a 2024 rule that requires coal-fired plants to eliminate nearly all their carbon emissions or commit to shutting down altogether, a cornerstone of Biden’s climate agenda.