Trump’s Abuse of Emergency Declaration to Force Ratepayers to Prop Up Inefficient Coal Power Plants Is Breathlessly Stupid

President Donald Trump will today sign executive orders that seek to force ratepayers to pay to keep uneconomic coal power plants running, and push a dramatic expansion of coal mining on public lands The move to resurrect coal power, which Public Citizen warned about months ago, is part of the President’s abuse of emergency powers under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, among other laws. As part of the orders, Trump will separately charge Secretary of Energy Chris Wright with determining whether coal used in steel production should be deemed “critical” under federal law. The executive orders will be signed at a 3pm White House event. In response, Public Citizen’s Energy Program Director Tyson Slocum, issued the following statement:

“Apparently the guy that did Trump’s tariff calculations put together this ratepayer-funded coal bailout plan, because it’s just as stupid. Trump’s fraudulent January 20 energy emergency declaration unsurprisingly is heavy on useless rhetoric and devoid of any facts.

“Reviving or extending coal to power data centers would force working families to subsidize polluting coal on behalf of Big Tech billionaires and despoil our nation’s public lands. States planning to move to cleaner, cheaper energy sources could be forced to keep old coal plants up and running for years, forcing nearby residents to breathe dirty air and harming the climate. Trump’s expected use of the threat of power demand growth from AI data centers to ramp up domestic coal mining and consumption is unjustifiable, as Public Citizen recently pointed out to Congress. Trump and his team of incompetents continue to demonstrate their lack of understanding of how energy markets work. Public Citizen is more than happy to meet with Administration officials and walk them through why forcing American families to pay for uneconomic coal power plants is dull-witted and will result in a massive ratepayer-funded subsidy for Big Tech billionaires.

“The future of steel in the United States is utilizing green hydrogen and renewable energy to revolutionize production. Doubling down on dirty coal to make steel sets our economy back decades, and allows the rest of the world to make steel cheaper and greener. Competing to make steel means investing in the technologies that will power steel production in the future, not doubling down on the production from the past.

“The Big Tech firms that are driving energy demand at data centers with their new AI technologies—but which have long claimed to be concerned about the climate crisis—should renounce this Trump diktat immediately.”