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Senate Dems Push Trump to Restore Blue-State Grants Canceled for Partisan Reasons
"Once an administration begins punishing Americans for how they vote, the threat extends far beyond these projects."
Jul 30, 2026
A group of 39 Democratic senators on Thursday told the Trump White House to restore grants for their states that the administration itself admitted were canceled for purely political reasons.
In a court filing earlier this month, attorneys representing the US Department of Energy (DOE) acknowledged that decisions about canceling grants for a series of renewable energy projects were based “solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State."
The Democratic senators responded with a letter to US Energy Secretary Chris Wright and White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought demanding that the cancelations be reversed.
"You not only acted outside the bounds of the law," the senators wrote, "but cancelled projects that would have provided jobs, onshored manufacturing, and lowered skyrocketing energy prices. Congress authorized those projects and appropriated funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and annual appropriation bills."
Later in the letter, the senators argued that more was at stake beyond grants for green energy.
"Once an administration begins punishing Americans for how they vote, the threat extends far beyond these projects," the Democrats wrote. "No state, community, business, or worker can trust that the federal government will apply the law fairly."
"This is not only an attack on jobs, affordable energy, and America’s economic competitiveness," the Democrats added. "It is an attack on the rule of law and the basic democratic principle that the federal government serves the entire country—not merely those who support the president."
Last year, the DOE recommended canceling more than 600 grants awarded for energy projects under former President Joe Biden’s administration. However, the OMB subsequently intervened and canceled fewer than half of the recommended projects, while keeping grants for projects in states that voted for President Donald Trump.
After a group of California researchers challenged the terminated grants in a lawsuit, the DOE acknowledged that “with one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators.”
The DOE also admitted that there was no “programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor” to justify the cuts.
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‘Stunning Admission’: Trump Admin Targeted Democrats by Canceling Clean Energy Grants
"It is despicable that the administration is taking away funding from states that did not vote for Trump," said US Sen. Dick Durbin.
Jul 24, 2026
President Donald Trump's administration has admitted in court that it chose to cancel certain grants for clean energy projects because they were set to benefit Democratic-voting states.
The New York Times reported on Friday that attorneys representing the US Department of Energy (DOE) acknowledged in court documents filed earlier this month that decisions about canceling grants were based "solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state, i.e., whether the recipient’s location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State."
The Times described this as a "stunning admission" that "offered an unvarnished glimpse into the way President Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing, and infrastructure aid in his second term."
According to the Times, the DOE last year recommended canceling more than 600 grants awarded for energy projects under former President Joe Biden's administration.
However, the White House Office of Management and Budget only made 284 of the recommended cuts while leaving the rest of the grants in place.
After a group of California researchers challenged the terminated grants in a lawsuit, the DOE acknowledged that "with one exception, the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing senators."
The DOE also admitted that there was no "programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor" to justify the cuts.
In a social media post, New York Times reporter Tony Romm noted that the DOE made these admissions "as part of a process meant to avoid discovery" and "perhaps spare it from sharing more damaging records" in its possession.
The Times report drew a sharp reaction from Trump administration critics.
"This is corruption," said Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Calif.). "It’s how this administration has acted since day one: punishing states, businesses, and ordinary Americans who push back on Trump. It’s a major betrayal of our nation that will lead to higher energy prices and should be condemned by people of all political parties. It’s un-American and despicable."
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) accused the administration of "the weaponization of government" with its selective grant cancellations.
"This administration shows us time and time again they only care about one person," Kim added, "and that person only cares about himself."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) argued that the filings prove "what we have long known, that their grant cancellations were not based on 'waste' or sound policy but vindictiveness."
"It is despicable," Durbin emphasized, "that the administration is taking away funding from states that did not vote for Trump."
Jennifer Victory, political scientist at George Mason University, described the administration's scheme as "violations of the rule of law that would be sufficient for impeachment in any other American presidency but aren't in this one because pathological partisan loyalty has rotted the constitutional order."
Sam Stein, managing editor at The Bulwark, said that the DOE's admission about targeting Democratic states was "something we all knew and saw at the time and yet still breathtaking to read... in print."
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Contrary to Evidence, Trump Energy Secretary Says Data Centers Are Best Tool to 'Stop the Rise of Electricity Prices’
His comments came one day after the largest power grid in the US announced massive rate hikes and said the "primary driver of that growth is data centers."
Jul 15, 2026
After New York’s Democratic governor enacted a temporary ban on the construction of large data centers to curb their enormous power consumption, President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, made the evidence-free claim that the facilities are actually the “greatest tool” for reducing the sharp increases in energy prices.
On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order barring for one year the construction of "hyperscale" data centers that can consume 50 megawatts of power or more, saying that unchecked expansion "threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers."
New York was the first state to place a moratorium on data center development, and more than a dozen other states have considered enacting moratoriums as evidence has mounted that data centers tend to spike power demand and drive up costs.
But as the rapid growth of data centers has sparked furious backlash in communities of all political stripes, the industry has maintained a steadfast ally in the Trump administration, which has continued to champion rapid data center buildout by fast-tracking permits, opening federal land to developers, promoting new energy infrastructure, and offering federal financing and tax incentives to new projects.
On Wednesday morning, Wright took to Fox News to blast Hochul's block on data center development.
"Gov. Hochul has it exactly backward," he said. "Data centers are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately to bring them back down."
Wright, a former fracking executive, protested that “Democrat green energy policies” were responsible for driving up energy prices in New York, pointing to its ban on fracking, the blocking of a major natural gas pipeline, and an “insane climate law” requiring the state to transition away from fossil fuels by 2040.
"Energy is extremely expensive in New York and now sparse because of bad Democrat policies," he said. "Nothing to do with data centers."
Wright did not elaborate on how exactly data centers could be used as a "tool" to bring down energy prices. But if this is the case, nobody has informed the energy companies themselves.
His comments came just a day after PJM, which serves 67 million customers and is the nation's largest electric grid operator, released the results of an electricity auction that added $6.3 billion in costs to consumers' energy bills in 2028-29 due to growth in energy demand.
"The primary driver of that growth is data centers," the company said in a press release. "New data center facilities and expansions of existing sites can be developed quickly, up to two to three times faster than many of the electricity generation technologies that are necessary to serve them and allow PJM to maintain the reliability customers expect."
That increase is not confined to the future. It has already begun. According to Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, since 2024, the auctions have added $29 billion in costs to the customers across the 13 states plus Washington, DC, where it operates. New York is not one of the states supplied by the PJM grid.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has found that recent PJM auction increases have added as much as $20-30 to monthly bills in some parts of the company's regions, and projects that continued data-center growth could eventually add roughly $70 per month for an average household.
The labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union, which has published many pieces documenting the effects of data centers on American communities, called Wright's claim "one of the most blatant lies we’ve ever heard."
"Data centers are pushing energy prices up," the outlet said. "That is not a matter of debate, it’s a fact."
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Will Climate-Driven Heatwave Help Make the Case Against Big Tech Data Centers?
As power grids become strained amid the latest US heatwave, residents of communities with data centers are being asked to make sacrifices in the form of cost, comfort, and potentially safety.
Jul 02, 2026
The rise of global temperatures has made oppressive summer heatwaves an annual occurrence, and for many Americans, air conditioning is no longer optional.
But as scorching temperatures bear down on the US once again this week, affecting more than 250 million people across the country, some are suddenly being forced to share the precious cool air with data centers that have popped up in their towns to power the breakneck build-out of artificial intelligence technology.
To keep their massive arrays of computer servers cool, these complexes require large amounts of energy even in normal times. But during a heatwave, the demand becomes even greater.
As power grids become strained, residents of communities with data centers are being asked to make sacrifices in the form of cost, comfort, and potentially safety.
In Henrico County, Virginia, which has 37 data centers, thousands of county employees received an email last week from County Manager John Vithoulkas warning them that beginning on July 1, the rate paid by "government and school facilities will increase dramatically—by 25%, increasing costs by an estimated $5 million next fiscal year."
"To mitigate the impact of higher electric costs, I am asking that we, collectively, make slight adjustments to conserve electricity across our individual workspaces,” he said in the email, which was obtained by 404 Media. “Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day,” he continued. “Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight.”
He also informed them of the high cost of running "space heaters," which Frank Landymore of Futurism.com suggested was a thinly veiled way of telling residents to turn down the AC, since nobody would be using space heaters in 100-degree heat.
It was a signifier of what's happened across the entire mid-Atlantic grid, whose largest operator, PJM Interconnection, is experiencing record energy demand.
According to Reuters, the grid that supplies power to 67 million people has seen a roughly 1,000% increase in capacity prices since 2024 as a result of the AI boom, which is already being passed onto consumers in the form of higher bills.
To reduce the risk of outages caused by an overburdened grid, the US Department of Energy granted PJM the authority to require data centers to operate backup diesel generators.
Under the emergency order, Politico reported, data centers are allowed to produce enough diesel emissions that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would categorize it as a "possible human carcinogen."
The result has been what Shaolei Ren, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, told The Associated Press could be “a disaster for the local air quality" in communities with data centers.
In Lowell, Massachusetts, where a Markley Group data center sits in the working-class Sacred Heart neighborhood, residents told the AP that they were staying inside to avoid smelling the diesel fumes being belched up near their homes.
Public backlash led the Lowell City Council to vote unanimously for a moratorium on data center building in February. But many residents feel the damage has already been done, with the Markley center gobbling up their town's electric and water resources.
One resident told The Harvard Crimson in May that since the center came to town, his winter electric bill has shot up from $40 to $177.
As temperatures spiked this week, more than 200 protesters flooded a local zoning meeting to voice their anger about the noise, pollution, and surveillance equipment bearing down on their homes. One 14-year-old girl was dragged out of the meeting by police officers.
"I'm not hurting anyone," she shouted as cops escorted her through the exit. "We just don't want data centers!"
Within roughly three years, data centers have come to consume about 4.5% of all electricity in the US, a number that is expected to keep ballooning in the coming years.
Even before the data center boom began, scientists had long warned that the climate crisis caused by human carbon emissions would make US heatwaves more frequent, longer, and more intense.
Heatwaves in major US cities are already three times as common as they were in the 1960s, according to an EPA report from 2024, and the average heatwave season is now 46 days longer.
The number of heat-related deaths in the US more than doubled from 1,069 in 1999 to 2,325 in 2023, according to a JAMA Network study analyzing mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
With more than 1,500 data center projects currently underway across the US, a vicious cycle appears poised to accelerate.
The rapid buildout of data centers has already culminated in massive emission spikes. Amazon, which once pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2040, saw its carbon output increase by 16% in 2025 in large part due to its multi-billion dollar data center buildout.
According to a report out Wednesday from the Environmental Integrity Project, at least 74 natural gas-fired power plants are being planned to power the industry's expansion, which are expected to release 662 million tons of greenhouse gas—equivalent to the entire nation of Australia—per year.
Many of the plants are being built in low-income areas that already have poorer health outcomes and could produce nearly 160,000 tons of health-damaging pollutants that can cause lung damage, asthma, and heart attacks.
“In their wholehearted embrace of dirty and outdated gas power, data center developers are announcing to the public that they don’t care about us," said Alex Bomstein, the executive director at Clean Air Council. "We deserve better than decades of toxic pollution, parched streambeds, and climate chaos.”
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Coalition Rips Trump Plan to 'Rubber-Stamp' Nuclear Reactors as Dangerous and Illegal
"In its eagerness to short-circuit reactor safeguards, the Trump administration is once again doing what it does best—demonstrating a complete disregard for the law," said the head of Beyond Nuclear.
May 11, 2026
A coalition of advocacy groups on Monday took aim at President Donald Trump's nuclear power plans, including a recently proposed rule that would allow developers using federally approved reactor designs to bypass required safety reviews, which the organizations called "ill-advised and contrary to law."
"In its eagerness to short-circuit reactor safeguards, the Trump administration is once again doing what it does best—demonstrating a complete disregard for the law," said Linda Pentz Gunter, executive director of Beyond Nuclear, in a statement.
"But nuclear technology is too inherently dangerous to operate as an outlaw," she stressed. "Ignoring those dangers will put millions of Americans at risk of another catastrophic nuclear accident."
Beyond Nuclear and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) have submitted multiple formal comments to the administration, on behalf of overlapping coalitions, blasting its ongoing nuclear policymaking, which has been guided by a series of executive orders signed by the president last May.
The first coalition comments focus on the US Department of Energy allowing firms that build experimental nuclear reactors to seek exemptions from legally required environmental reviews. That filing was submitted in early March, a month after DOE announced the "categorical exclusion for authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning of advanced nuclear reactors for inclusion in its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing procedures."
Then, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month unveiled a proposed rule to expedite NRC reviews of commercial nuclear power plant applications involving reactor designs already approved by DOE or the Department of Defense (DOD)—which Trump has dubbed the Department of War. That prompted more comments from Beyond Nuclear, NIRS, and allied groups last week.
"Along with the DOE's environmental 'free pass' policy, the whole 'expedited licensing' regime the administration is attempting to set up appears to be illegal," NIRS executive director Tim Judson, who co-authored the recent comments to the NRC, said Monday.
"The White House is trying to create a 'regulatory tunnel' around NRC's safety regulations," he warned. "That would mean DOE's biases and obviously false assumptions about the safety of nuclear power plants become the new normal, exposing the public to unacceptable dangers to our health and safety."
"And while the law allows the DOD to build its own nuclear reactors," Judson added, "it does not allow the NRC to skip safety reviews for civilian nuclear plants just because they use the same designs. The military routinely exposes its personnel to dangers that civilians are supposed to be protected from."
The coalition's latest filing details how the administration's actions are "inconsistent" with the Administrative Procedure Act, Atomic Energy Act, Energy Reorganization Act, and NEPA, "as well as the constitutional requirement for due process in a democratic society." It also emphasizes that nothing in Trump's orders "can excuse" the alleged legal violations.
"Fifty years ago, the Atomic Energy Commission was abolished because they became too much of a promoter and lost the confidence of Congress and the public over safety," Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project at Beyond Nuclear, explained Monday.
"The NRC was established to provide a regulator that prioritizes safety and is obligated not to take shortcuts for a production agenda," he continued. "Instead, half a century later, we are on the same dangerous collision course, casting aside the NRC in favor of the DOE, which doesn't have the experience or the staff to get the industry in line with safety and security. This capitulation to the Trump agenda could lead to the NRC being abolished altogether, because nobody will have confidence in them."
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Coalition Sues Trump Admin Over 'Unlawful' Approval of LNG Export Project
A lawyer for the plaintiffs argues that the Department of Energy "is using an untested loophole to avoid considering the impacts of this project on Americans’ health and on the environment."
Feb 17, 2026
A coalition of green groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday contesting the Trump administration's approval of what would be one of the world's largest liquefied natural gas facilities—permission granted despite the project's threats to frontline communities, the environment, and climate.
The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Earthjustice are representing the Sierra Club, which is suing the US Department of Energy (DOE) for approving Venture Global’s application to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Calcasieu Pass 2, or CP2, terminal, which is now under construction in Cameron Parish, Louisiana.
“We’re suing over DOE’s unlawful approval of this facility that will increase climate-warming pollution and do nothing to lower energy costs for Americans,” NRDC senior attorney Caroline Reiser said. “DOE is using an untested loophole to avoid considering the impacts of this project on Americans’ health and on the environment. The agency also failed to consider how LNG exports could increase US energy prices.”
As Earthjustice explained:
CP2’s pollution, traffic, sprawl, and visual impact would add to the harms the nine overburdened local Gulf Coast communities located near the facility already experience from nearby existing LNG terminals. These communities already bear the burden of other heavy industry and are on the frontlines of the bigger hurricanes and storms fueled by the worsening climate crisis. Approving CP2’s exports will add to environmental injustice, fuel additional climate change, and increase prices for domestic consumers.
CP2 is one of the key projects in what climate campaigners called a "staggering" LNG expansion under former President Joe Biden. In January 2024, his administration announced a temporary pause on DOE approvals of pending and future LNG export applications to nations with which the US did not have free trade agreements. A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump later ruled the pause illegal.
The United States is the world’s leading natural gas producer and LNG exporter. While the fossil fuel industry often calls LNG a “bridge fuel”—a cleaner alternative to coal that will ease the transition to sustainable energy sources—critics have warned that the fossil gas actually hampers the transition to a green economy. LNG is mostly composed of methane, which has more than 80 times the planetary heating power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere.
Trump's DOE—headed by former fracking CEO Chris Wright—granted preliminary approval to CP2 last March, with the final green light coming in October. If built as planned, it would export around 20 million metric tons per year of LNG.
"The estimated lifecycle greenhouse gas from this methane gas would be more than the annual emissions of 47 million gas-powered cars, or 54 coal-fired power plants," said NRDC.
CP2 construction has already harmed local communities in Cameron Parish—especially local fishers. Last summer, dredging despoiled hundreds of acres of marshland, burying crab traps and oyster beds, and killing wildlife including the crabs, fish, and shrimp upon which fishers depend for their livelihood.
“We’re routinely seeing less and less catch. LNG has polluted our waters and disrupted the wildlife," one local fisher and dock manager said last year. "The shrimp just do not want to come in because of the LNG projects.”
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'Making America Unsafe Again': Alarm Over Environmental Review Exemption for Nuclear Reactors
"I think the DOE's attempts to cut corners on safety, security, and environmental protections are posing a grave risk to public health, safety, and our natural environment," said one expert.
Feb 03, 2026
Less than a week after NPR revealed that "the Trump administration has overhauled a set of nuclear safety directives and shared them with the companies it is charged with regulating, without making the new rules available to the public," the US Department of Energy announced Monday that it is allowing firms building experimental nuclear reactors to seek exemptions from legally required environmental reviews.
Citing executive orders signed by President Donald Trump in May, a notice published in the Federal Register states that the DOE "is establishing a categorical exclusion for authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning of advanced nuclear reactors for inclusion in its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing procedures."
NEPA has long been a target of energy industries and Republican elected officials, including Trump. The exemption policy has been expected since Trump's May orders—which also launched a DOE pilot program to rapidly build the experimental reactors—and the department said in a statement that even the exempted reactors will face some reviews.
"The US Department of Energy is establishing the potential option to obtain a streamlined approach for advanced nuclear reactors as part of the environmental review performed under NEPA," the DOE said. "The analysis on each reactor being considered will be informed by previously completed environmental reviews for similar advanced nuclear technologies."
"The fact is that any nuclear reactor, no matter how small, no matter how safe it looks on paper, is potentially subject to severe accidents."
However, the DOE announcement alarmed various experts, including Daniel P. Aldrich, director of the Resilience Studies Program at Northeastern University, who wrote on social media: "Making America unsafe again: Trump created an exclusion for new experimental reactors from disclosing how their construction and operation might harm the environment, and from a written, public assessment of the possible consequences of a nuclear accident."
Foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen described the policy as "terrifying," while Paul Dorfman, chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group and a scholar at the University of Sussex's Bennett Institute for Innovation and Policy Acceleration, called it "truly crazy."
As NPR reported Monday:
Until now, the test reactor designs currently under construction have primarily existed on paper, according to Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group. He believes the lack of real-world experience with the reactors means that they should be subject to more rigorous safety and environmental reviews before they're built.
"The fact is that any nuclear reactor, no matter how small, no matter how safe it looks on paper, is potentially subject to severe accidents," Lyman said.
"I think the DOE's attempts to cut corners on safety, security, and environmental protections are posing a grave risk to public health, safety, and our natural environment here in the United States," he added.
Lyman was also among the experts who criticized changes that NPR exposed last week, after senior editor and correspondent Geoff Brumfiel obtained documents detailing updates to "departmental orders, which dictate requirements for almost every aspect of the reactors' operations—including safety systems, environmental protections, site security, and accident investigations."
While the DOE said that it shared early versions of the rules with companies, "the reduction of unnecessary regulations will increase innovation in the industry without jeopardizing safety," and "the department anticipates publicly posting the directives later this year," Brumfiel noted that the orders he saw weren't labeled as drafts and had the word "approved" on their cover pages.
In a lengthy statement about last week's reporting, Lyman said on the Union of Concerned Scientists website that "this deeply troubling development confirms my worst fears about the dire state of nuclear power safety and security oversight under the Trump administration. Such a brazen rewriting of hundreds of crucial safeguards for the public underscores why preservation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as an independent, transparent nuclear regulator is so critical."
"The Energy Department has not only taken a sledgehammer to the basic principles that underlie effective nuclear regulation, but it has also done so in the shadows, keeping the public in the dark," he continued. "These long-standing principles were developed over the course of many decades and consider lessons learned from painful events such as the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters. This is a massive experiment in the deregulation of novel, untested nuclear facilities that could pose grave threats to public health and safety."
"These drastic changes may extend beyond the Reactor Pilot Program, which was created by President Trump last year to circumvent the more rigorous licensing rules employed by the NRC," Lyman warned. "While the DOE created a legally dubious framework to designate these reactors as 'test' reactors to bypass the NRC's statutory authority, these dramatic alterations may further weaken standards used in the broader DOE authorization process and propagate across the entire fleet of commercial nuclear facilities, severely degrading nuclear safety throughout the United States."
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As Trump Boosts Coal Industry, Black Lung Miners Say They've Been 'Cast Aside to Die'
“The Trump administration was handed tools to protect black lung and they are doing everything in their power to toss those rules in the trash,” said one campaigner ahead of a planned protest.
Oct 13, 2025
As the Trump administration moves ahead with a massive bailout for the coal industry as part of its "drill, baby, drill" pro-fossil fuel energy policy, miners suffering from black lung disease and their advocates are set for a Tuesday protest in Washington, DC to draw attention what they say is the government's failure to protect them.
Last month, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $625 million investment “to expand and reinvigorate America’s coal industry," despite the sedimentary rock being arguably the worst fossil fuel for both air pollution and the climate amid an ever-worsening planetary emergency. Burning coal for energy is the single largest contributor to planetary heating, accounting for over 40% of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions.
US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said at the time that “beautiful, clean coal will be essential to powering America’s reindustrialization and winning the AI race," as generative artificial intelligence requires stupendous amounts of energy.
“The companies might be getting a handout, but the miners ain’t getting none."
The DOE's announcement followed the Mine Safety and Health Administration's (MSHA) blocking of a rule it finalized during the Biden administration to protect coal and other miners from silica dust, prolonged exposure to which causes black lung disease, which is formally called coal worker's pneumoconiosis.
The inhaled coal dust triggers chronic inflammation, causing scarring of lung tissue, reduced lung elasticity, and impaired oxygen flow. Lung and heart failure, infections including pneumonia, lung cancer, and other illnesses cause a slow and painful death. The disease is irreversible and there is no cure. According to the American Lung Association, "an estimated 16% of coal workers are affected" by black lung disease in the US, "and after decades of improvement, the number of cases of black lung disease is on the rise again."
As Trey Pollard of Appalachian Citizens' Law Center explained in an email Monday:
The rule was supposed to go into effect in April 2025. But instead MSHA blocked the rule, blaming mass layoffs at the [National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health] conducted by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The mining industry also took the rule to court, where the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals put an indefinite pause of the rule after the administration failed to oppose the industry’s request. The next court update is scheduled for mid-October, a full six months after the rule’s planned enforcement date.
"Every day of delayed enforcement increases miners’ exposure to silica and their risk of black lung disease," Pollard added. "On October 14, miners, their families, and their supporters will gather in front of the Department of Labor to demand the administration fight to preserve the silica rule and to call for an end to the delays."
TOMORROW: Support miners rallying in DC outside the #USDOL!The longer the Trump admin waits, the more miners will get #blacklung. We must act now. ⛏️✊ Rally info here: loom.ly/xsY-jGE OR watch our instagram livestream w/ @appcitizenslaw.bsky.social
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— The BlueGreen Alliance (@bluegreenalliance.bsky.social) October 13, 2025 at 1:32 PM
The Washington, DC demonstration is being organized by the National Black Lung Association, with support from the United Mine Workers of America, Fayette County Black Lung Association, Kanawha County Black Lung Association, Wyoming County Black Lung Association, Virginia Black Lung Association Chapter 1, Virginia Black Lung Association Chapter 2, the Alliance for Appalachia, Appalachian Voices, Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, and the BlueGreen Alliance.
“The Trump administration was handed tools to protect black lung and they are doing everything in their power to toss those rules in the trash,” BlueGreen Alliance executive director Jason Walsh told The New York Times' Lisa Friedman Monday.
Friedman interviewed miners suffering from black lung disease who said they felt abandoned by Trump, despite their support being a significant factor in his reelection.
“The companies might be getting a handout, but the miners ain’t getting none,” said 71-year-old National Black Lung Association president and retired miner Gary Hairston, who has been living with the disease since he was in his 40s.
Judith Riffe, whose husband Bernard died in March of complications from black lung disease after more than 40 years of work in West Virginia coal mines, told Friedman she wishes that the Trump administration would fight for miners as vigorously as it does for fossil fuel companies.
“Sure, they talk about how much they care about coal but come down here and look," Riffe said. “They’re mining a lot more now, the coal trucks and everything are running, but there’s no benefits for the coal miners coming in."
“The coal miners have supplied this country with electricity," she added, "and now they’re just cast aside to die.”
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Public and Planet to 'Pay the Price' as Trump Props Up Coal With $625 Million Bailout
One campaigner called it "nothing more than a wealth transfer from the American people to Trump's billionaire friends sitting atop a failing industry."
Sep 29, 2025
On the heels of reporting that the US Department of Energy banned staff from using "climate change" and related terms, the DOE on Monday announced a $625 million investment "to expand and reinvigorate America's coal industry," which was swiftly panned by climate and public health advocates.
While US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright claimed that "beautiful, clean coal will be essential to powering America's reindustrialization and winning the AI race," referring to the rapidly rising energy needs of artificial intelligence, critics pointed to the dangers posed by fossil fuels.
"Rather than investing in affordable and clean energy, Chris Wright is taking taxpayers' hard-earned dollars and giving it to wealthy executives in the coal industry," said Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign director Laurie Williams in a statement. "This is a transparent wealth transfer from everyday Americans, who are already making tough decisions at the kitchen table, to the millionaires that run the fossil fuel industry."
Specifically, in response to President Donald Trump's coal-focused executive orders from earlier this year, DOE is committing $350 million to recommissioning and retrofitting, $175 million for projects in rural communities, $50 million to wastewater management systems to expand plant lifelines, $25 million for dual firing retrofits, and $25 million for gas cofiring systems.
"If Chris Wright, or anyone in Donald Trump's administration, truly cared about bringing down the cost of electricity, they would be investing in affordable clean energy instead of taking a sledgehammer to the progress our country has made," said Williams. "By handing out millions to the coal industry, the Trump administration is divesting from Americans' health, from our environment, and from our path forward to a cleaner, healthier future."
David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s climate program, similarly said that "President Trump's coal giveaway is exactly the wrong direction for the country. It is clear that solar, wind, and battery storage will provide nearly all affordable, clean energy in the near future, and expensive, dirty coal will be a relic of the past."
"Trump's effort to block renewables and keep fossil fuels on life support only hurts Americans," Arkush continued. "It forces us to pay for unduly expensive energy and wasteful corporate subsidies, harms our health by polluting our air and water, and neglects to build up domestic manufacturing and supply chains for the energy technologies of the future while China races ahead."
"Other forms of energy are simply far less expensive than coal—as well as cleaner, cheaper, and safer for a climate habitable for humans," he added. "This bailout is nothing more than a wealth transfer from the American people to Trump's billionaire friends sitting atop a failing industry."
Idiot orange moron continues to destroy America. www.energy.gov/articles/ene... #trump #Epstein #GOP #MAGA #FossilFuel #ClimateEmergency #Renewables #Energy
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— plugpower.bsky.social (@plugpower.bsky.social) September 29, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Camden Weber, climate and energy policy specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, also highlighted how Trump serves the superrich, particularly the fossil fuel executives who poured money into his 2024 campaign as he pledged to "drill, baby, drill."
"The guy with a golden, life-size statue of himself holding a bitcoin outside the US Capitol is prioritizing data center profits over Americans’ access to clean air, water, and affordable energy? Shocker," said Weber.
"Trump's order fabricates yet another 'energy emergency' to keep filthy coal plants online and fueling massive, energy-sucking data centers," she added. "He and his ultrarich friends will cash in while the public and our planet pay the price. The damage to our climate will be immense and unforgivable."
Separately on Monday, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced the opening of 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal leasing, triple the benchmarks set by the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that congressional Republicans passed and Trump signed this summer.
"Expanding mining and spending taxpayer money on burning coal, while rolling back vital health protections, will only exacerbate the deadly pollution and rising electricity bills that communities are facing across the country," said Jill Tauber, vice president of litigation for climate and energy at Earthjustice.
"Clean energy and other climate solutions are driving significant growth in our economy, but this administration is choosing to throw its weight behind fossil fuel industries and stymie progress," she added. "Earthjustice will continue to take the administration to court to oppose unlawful actions to prop up coal at the expense of the American people."
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Trump Energy Dept. Under Fire for Banning 'Climate Change' and Related Terms
"It's like they're trying to cover up a homicide," said the Environmental Voter Project.
Sep 29, 2025
President Donald Trump's administration has faced a flood of criticism since Politico reported Sunday that the US Department of Energy has added "climate change" and other related terms to its "list of words to avoid" at a key office.
According to a Friday email obtained by the news outlet, other banned words at the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy include carbon/CO2 "footprint," clean, decarbonization, "dirty" energy, emissions, energy transition, green, sustainability/sustainable, and tax breaks/tax credits/subsidies.
“Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid—and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be misaligned with the administration's perspectives and priorities," Rachel Overbey, acting director of external affairs, reportedly wrote.
While the DOE did not respond to Politico's request for comment, critics were quick to blast the administration for yet another anti-science move.
" Censorship can't erase facts: The climate crisis is real, it's human-made, and deadly."
"Welcome to the Donald Trump post-truth world," Dr. Ali Khan, a retired US assistant surgeon general, responded on social media.
Since returning to power in January—after raking in campaign cash from Big Oil by promising to "drill, baby, drill"—Trump has also ditched the Paris Agreement (again), declared an "energy emergency" to benefit the fossil fuel industry, and claimed during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week that scientists' predictions about the climate crisis were "wrong" and "made by stupid people."
Trump also nominated climate liar and former fracking CEO Chris Wright as energy secretary. Under his leadership, the department has celebrated planet-wrecking coal on social media while spreading disinformation about solar and wind energy. It also published a July climate report that independent experts said is "biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking."
The department crafted that report as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's effort to scrap the "endangerment finding," the 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people, which underpins federal climate policy.
Responding to the DOE's newly revealed directive on banned words, the Environmental Voter Project charged, "It's like they're trying to cover up a homicide."
Paul Dorfman, chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group and a Bennett scholar at the University of Sussex, said, "Death cult does its thing."
Climate Rights International's advocacy director, Lotte Leicht, declared: "Ridiculous! Banning words won't change reality... Censorship can't erase facts: The climate crisis is real, it's human-made, and deadly. Silencing science = endangering lives."
Rakesh Bhandari, associate director of interdisciplinary studies at the University of California, Berkeley, warned of the likely impacts of the DOE's banned words.
"This will not only affect research and policy directly, it will also affect what we see and don't see and what we say and don't say. The state has this power in virtue of its legitimate and cognitive authority," Bhandari said. "Note that the Democrats are pretty silent about what matters most to the GOP: The protection of fossil fuels."
Nodding to the Trump administration's broad assault on First Amendment rights, Ross Seidman, senior counsel for a Democratic state senator in Maryland, said, "More 'banned words' from the party of free speech."
The New York Times in March compiled a list of nearly 200 terms that agencies' leaders have told staff to limit or avoid as part of Trump's purge of "woke" initiatives. They range from clean energy, climate crisis, and climate science to activism, disability, diversity, gender, hate speech, mental health, pregnant people, sexuality, racism, stereotypes, and victim.
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