Tag: coal industry

Trump’s EPA Prepares Another Gift For The Coal Industry

Trump’s EPA administrator wants to redraw our nation’s mercury standard to benefit coal-fired power plants that belch out nearly half the nation’s mercury emissions. But the agency’s Science Advisory Board is balking.

The board, headed by Trump administration appointee Michael Honeycutt who previously opposed tougher mercury standards, told the EPA it needed to look again at how much mercury people get from fish and the harm from mercury.

“EPA should instigate a new risk assessment,” the board wrote. Continue reading.

Murray Energy, Top US Coal Producer, Files For Bankruptcy

Donald Trump ran for president in 2016 on an ironclad promise to save America’s flagging coal industry.

On Tuesday, Murray Energy — the nation’s largest private coal producer — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Murray Energy is is the eighth coal company to go bankrupt in the past year alone. The company employs more than 5,000 full-time employees.

View the complete October 29 article by Josh Israel on the National Memo website here.

Trump’s EPA announces new plan to save the coal industry. Experts say it won’t.

Coal is in a death spiral and experts largely agree the ACE rule won’t save it.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on Wednesday one of President Donald Trump’s biggest efforts yet to rescue coal, even as projections show the industry in a downward spiral largely due to market forces rather than policy.

The agency unveiled the long-awaited Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, designed to repeal and replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP), which aimed to curb climate change by lowering power plant carbon dioxide emissions. The Trump administration has repeatedly argued the CPP was a federal overreach, one the ACE rule seeks to correct.

The CPP sought to reduce the power sector’s greenhouse gas emissions 32% by 2030, using 2005 levels as a baseline, largely by shifting to natural gas and renewable energy in a blow to coal. By contrast, Trump’s new ACE rule moves power to the states, giving those governments broad authority over coal emissions on a plant-by-plant basis.

View the complete June 19 article by E.A. Crunden on the ThinkProgress website here.

Trump EPA finalizes rollback of key Obama climate rule that targeted coal plants

The Trump administration finalized its biggest climate policy rollback Wednesday, requiring the U.S. power sector to cut its 2030 carbon emissions 35 percent over 2005 levels — less than half of what experts calculate is needed to avert catastrophic warming of the planet.

The Affordable Clean Energy rule, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, demands much smaller carbon dioxide reductions than the industry is already on track to achieve, even without federal regulation. As of last year, the U.S. power sector had cut its greenhouse gas emissions 27 percent compared with 2005.

Addressing an audience of supporters, including coal miners from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the new policy will overturn a climate policy that would have imposed higher costs on low- and middle-income Americans.

View the complete June 19 article by Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis on The Washington Post website here.

Trump-appointed regulators reject plan to rescue coal and nuclear plants

The following article by Steven Mufson was posted on the Washington Post website January 8, 2018:

Secretary Rick Perry

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Monday unanimously rejected a proposal by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that would have propped up nuclear and coal power plants struggling in competitive electricity markets.

The independent five-member commission includes four people appointed by President Trump, three of them Republicans. Its decision is binding.

At the same time, the commission said it shared Perry’s stated goal of strengthening the “resilience” of the electricity grid and directed regional transmission operators to provide information to help the commission examine the matter “holistically.” The operators have 60 days to submit materials. At that time, the agency can issue another order. Continue reading “Trump-appointed regulators reject plan to rescue coal and nuclear plants”

A year after Trump’s election, coal’s future remains bleak

The following article by Timothy Gardner was posted on the Reuters website November 13, 2017:

Earth moving equipment sits by a coal pile at the Century Mine in Beallsville, Ohio, U.S., November 7, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A year after Donald Trump was elected president on a promise to revive the ailing U.S. coal industry, the sector’s long-term prospects for growth and hiring remain as bleak as ever.

A Reuters review of mining data shows an industry that has seen only modest gains in jobs and production this year – much of it from a temporary uptick in foreign demand for U.S. coal rather than presidential policy changes.

U.S. utilities are shutting coal-fired power plants at a rapid pace and shifting to cheap natural gas, along with wind and solar power. And domestic demand makes up about 90 percent of the market for U.S. coal. Continue reading “A year after Trump’s election, coal’s future remains bleak”