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Despite Trump's Relentless Attack on Renewables, Solar Surpassed Coal Energy in US for First Time in May
"Solar is cheaper, cleaner, more reliable," said Rep. Jared Huffman. "Trump needs to end his war on clean energy and get on board with what’s best for America."
Jun 11, 2026
Since taking office 16 months ago, President Donald Trump has gone to extreme lengths to try to reverse the undeniable trend in the direction of solar power and away from expensive, planet-heating coal—but two new reports reveal how, despite Trump's relentless efforts, Americans are using renewable solar energy to power their homes and businesses more than ever.
The global energy think tank Ember revealed Wednesday that in May, for the first ever, solar supplied more of the United States' electricity than coal, at 12.8%. Coal dropped to its fourth-lowest point last month, delivering just 12.2% of electricity. Solar also became the third-largest source of electricity in May, behind gas and nuclear power.
The previous month, coal hit an all-time low, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration analyzed by Ember.
Another report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and the analytics firm Wood Mackenzie found that solar and battery storage accounted for 91% of all new energy generation capacity in the first quarter of 2026.
The news comes a week after Trump announced $700 million in new funding for the nation's coal industry, some of which is planned for the building of two brand-new coal-fired plants, which would be the first to be built in the US in 13 years.
US Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) compared Trump's latest effort to "lighting $700 million taxpayer dollars on fire," but emphasized that "the proof is there."
"Solar is cheaper, cleaner, more reliable," he said. "Trump needs to end his war on clean energy and get on board with what’s best for America."
Last week's announcement is one of numerous steps Trump has taken to prop up coal, one of the fossil fuels that scientists warn are heating the planet and increasingly causing destructive extreme weather events.
In February the president ordered the Pentagon to sign taxpayer-funded contracts with coal plants that otherwise would have been retired in the coming years, to provide electricity to military installations.
The Department of Energy also pledged $625 million to "expand and reinvigorate America’s coal industry," an effort that has run into opposition even from the industry itself. In Colorado, two utilities, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and the Platte River Power Authority, which co-own a coal-fired plant the administration has demanded stay in operation, filed a petition earlier this year asking the DOE to allow them to close the facility, saying they've built solar and wind farms and that being forced to buy coal and maintain the plant amounts to a violation of the US Constitution's takings clause.
While demanding that coal production continues, Trump has taken direct aim at the booming solar industry—canceling projects and terminating $7 billion in funding for an affordable renewable energy program.
On the online news show "Breaking Points," Ryan Grim noted that solar and wind power surged in the first quarter before Trump joined Israel in waging war on Iran, a decision that sent oil prices skyrocketing.
"I would imagine the second quarter is going to see 98%" of energy generating capacity coming from solar power, said Grim.
Despite the political attacks and regulatory slowdowns... solar and storage were still 91% of all new grid capacity added in Q1.
Why? "Because solar is cheaper."
Breaking Point's @RyanGrim and @emilyjashinsky explain👇 pic.twitter.com/lhppEVqAR1
— Solar and Storage Industry (@SEIA) June 11, 2026
"Who out there is like, 'You know, what we need to do is invest deeply in building out our fossil fuel infrastructure' at this point?" he said.
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In Yet Another Industry Handout, Trump EPA 'Just Took a Sledgehammer' to Coal Ash Rules
"Ultimately, if this rule is finalized, human health will suffer, and taxpayers will be left with the cost of cleaning up their rivers and drinking water."
Apr 09, 2026
Amid mounting calls for the removal of US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, the EPA chief on Thursday announced proposed changes to coal ash rules, which critics blasted as another gift to polluters at the expense of public health.
Officially called coal combustion residuals (CCR), "coal ash—the toxic byproduct of burning coal—contains hazardous pollutants, including arsenic, boron, cadmium, chromium, lead, radium, and selenium, which are linked to serious health harms such as cancer, heart disease, and brain damage, among other lasting impacts," noted the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Specifically, as The Associated Press reported, the EPA "proposed easing standards for monitoring and protecting groundwater near some coal ash sites, rolling back rules forcing the cleanup of entire coal properties instead of just places where ash was dumped. The revisions would also make it easier to reuse coal ash for other purposes."
While Zeldin claimed the "commonsense changes to the CCR regulations reflect EPA's commitment to restoring American energy dominance, strengthening cooperative federalism, and accommodating unique circumstances at certain CCR facilities," Environmental Protection Network's Marc Boom responded that "letting companies avoid cleaning up waste sites that may be leaching toxic metals into groundwater and nearby waterways, while weakening protections and accountability, is not common sense."
"EPA's top priority should be protecting people's health, not sacrificing it for corporate expediency," argued Boom, senior director of public affairs at the group, which is made up of former agency staff. "EPA may call these safeguards 'impractical,' but anyone living downstream of coal ash sites holding thousands of tons of waste knows that requiring cleanup and monitoring is a necessary and basic standard."
NRDC senior attorney Becky Hammer called the pending rollback just "the latest in a long, long, line of Trump administration giveaways to fossil fuels industries," which have also included repealing EPA rules that targeted chemical pollution from coal-fired power plants, declaring a national energy emergency, and scrapping the 2009 "endangerment finding" that underpins all federal climate regulations.
Other advocacy organizations were similarly critical of Thursday's announcement. Daniel Estrin, Waterkeeper Alliance's general counsel and legal director, pointed out that "coal ash is contaminating water at nearly every active and retired coal plant in the US."
"By gutting these safeguards, EPA is abandoning its duty to protect impacted communities by allowing preventable contamination of our rivers, lakes, streams, and groundwater," he said. "The longer the coal industry is allowed to delay closing and cleaning up its toxic waste sites, the more difficult and costly it becomes to fix the damage. By failing to enforce the law, EPA is letting polluters continue harming people and wildlife without accountability."
Like Estrin and Hammer, Earthjustice senior counsel Lisa Evans framed that proposal as "yet another handout to the coal power industry at the expense of our health, water, and wallets," and warned of the dangers of delaying closure and cleanup. She said that "ultimately, if this rule is finalized, human health will suffer, and taxpayers will be left with the cost of cleaning up their rivers and drinking water."
Although "the Trump administration just took a sledgehammer to the health protections in place for toxic coal pollution," Evans added, "Earthjustice has successfully defended these safeguards in court and will do so again."
Nick Torrey, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has secured commitments to clean up over 270 million tons of coal ash in US communities, similarly said that "doing the bidding of industrial polluters instead of protecting ordinary families and clean water is shameful, but we are ready to keep fighting against coal ash pollution."
"Letting coal-burning utilities set the agenda has been a disaster for communities across the South, resulting in coal ash spills and hundreds of families forced to live on bottled water for years under the threat of coal ash pollution," Torrey highlighted. "The Trump administration and coal ash polluters want to take us back to the bad old days of arsenic, lead, and mercury from coal ash contaminating our water."
In addition to facing a flurry of lawsuits over policies prioritizing the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry—whose campaign cash helped President Donald Trump return to the White House last year—the administration has recently been hit with demands to remove Zeldin from more than 160 advocacy groups and nearly 300 health experts.
"This EPA's actions to put polluters first, at the expense of our health, are dangerous and will be deadly," states the health experts' open letter, organized and released Thursday by the Climate Action Campaign. "Administrator Zeldin has abandoned his sworn duty and must be held accountable for his agenda."
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Coalition Sues Trump EPA for Torching Air Pollution Standards
"The repeal of these protections will mean more asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and premature deaths," said more than two dozen environmental and health groups.
Mar 30, 2026
A coalition of more than two dozen environmental and health groups sued the Trump administration on Monday for repealing Environmental Protection Agency rules that curbed dangerous chemical pollution from coal-fired power plants.
As part of President Donald Trump's efforts to dramatically expand the use of coal, the EPA last month finalized the repeal of the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which tightened existing restrictions on the emission of mercury, lead, and other brain-damaging chemicals from power plants.
Coal emits more planet-heating carbon dioxide per unit than any other fossil fuel. Coal plants also release a slew of other chemicals that can cause numerous health complications, including asthma, lung cancer, and respiratory infections.
The EPA says coal-fired power plants are also the single largest source of airborne mercury emissions, which can impair cognitive development, especially in young children.
MATS was created in 2012 to counter these effects and proved quite successful. Within six years of its enactment by the EPA, the amount of toxic mercury being emitted into the atmosphere from energy plants had declined by 90%, according to an agency report.
The Trump EPA has not repealed MATS entirely. Instead, it has targeted amendments enacted by the Biden administration in 2024 that lowered caps on mercury emissions, as well as on other toxic chemicals such as nickel and arsenic.
The EPA has also repealed rules requiring constant monitoring of toxic chemical emissions. Instead of installing expensive systems to track their outputs 24/7, plants can revert to conducting occasional checks.
The repeal came after the administration had already given dozens of coal plants a two-year exemption from the standards last April, even though, according to the agency, 93% were already on track to meet the requirements.
According to an analysis of EPA data by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) last month, sulfur dioxide pollution from coal plants increased by 18% last year, with those exempt from the rules surging almost twice as much as those not exempt.
The lawsuit, filed in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, argues that the Trump administration's actions violate the Clean Air Act, ignore the scientific record, and endanger communities living near power plants.
The suit is backed by groups including the NRDC, the Sierra Club, and the Environmental Defense Fund, as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Lung Association.
"The repeal of these protections will mean more asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and premature deaths," the groups said in a statement challenging the repeal. "This administration is not just rolling back rules, it is eliminating the monitoring infrastructure needed to know what is coming out of these smokestacks in the first place."
"It is allowing coal plants to spew out more neurotoxic mercury into our air and food supply, while simultaneously keeping the communities most at risk in the dark about how serious that threat is," they said. "This is a betrayal of the EPA’s core mission.”
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