On April 9, 2025, President Trump announced a slew of executive actions seeking to bolster the coal industry.[1]
One of the three executive orders is directly targeted at procedures to increase coal mining and production, which the administration concludes can satisfy the rapidly increasing energy demands of rapidly growing artificial intelligence infrastructure.[2] Whether the administration’s directives to boost coal production are sufficient to reverse the coal industry’s fortunes is debatable, particularly in light of the accelerating number of coal-fired power plants already retired or in advanced stages of retirement planning,[3] as well as significant pricing pressure from cheaper resources including natural gas and renewables.[4]
Executive Order: Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry
Expediting Coal Leasing and Mining: In this executive order, President Trump directs Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright to identify coal resources on federal lands, assess impediments to mining, and propose policies to remove those barriers. The Secretaries must then prioritize for coal leasing any lands that are identified in the report and expedite leasing, including through use of emergency authorities, consistent with Executive Order 14156, “Declaring a National Energy Emergency.” The executive order directs Secretary Burgum to remove the Obama-era coal moratorium on leasing and to expeditiously process royalty rate reductions. Pursuant to the executive order, Secretary Burgum immediately announced that the Department of the Interior (DOI) would expand access to coal reserves, including in Montana and Wyoming, end the coal moratorium, provide more power to the states on how to handle complaints about coal mining violations, and provide royalty relief.[5]
To expedite coal production on federal lands, the executive order also directs White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) to help agencies in adopting “coal-related categorical exclusions” under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). How CEQ will accomplish this given Executive Order 14154’s directive rescinding the authority for CEQ’s regulations, implemented by CEQ’s Interim Final Rule removing the NEPA implementing regulations,[6] remains to be seen.
Another issue to consider is how these directives will intersect with President Trump’s April 9, 2025 Executive Order titled “Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy”, which requires certain agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation and Enforcement, to amend “all regulations” promulgated under a list of statutes to include a “Conditional Sunset Date” by no later than September 30, 2025. These actions will increase uncertainty across any energy sector, even the coal industry that the administration is seeking to revitalize. For example, even if the regulatory order states that it “shall not apply to regulatory permitting regimes authorized by statute,” how the administration will define this type of permitting regime is unknown.
Steel Dominance: As anticipated, President Trump directed the chair of the National Energy Dominance Council (NEDC), Secretary Burgum, to designate coal as a “mineral” under Executive Order 14241, which aims to increase domestic minerals production.[7] Trump further directed Secretary Burgum to determine whether metallurgical coal used in the production of steel meets the criteria to be designated as a critical mineral under the Energy Policy Act of 2020[8] and Secretary Wright to determine whether coal used in the production of steel meets the definition of a “critical material” under the same Act. Secretary Wright acted on that directive in an announcement that recommends the designation of coal used in steelmaking as both a critical material and a critical mineral in the upcoming 2025 Critical Materials Assessment.
Supporting Coal as an Energy Source: The Executive Order directs multiple agencies to identify within 30 days guidance, regulations, programs, and policies that seek to transition the nation away from coal production and electricity generation and 30 days thereafter to consider rescinding or revising those federal actions. This directive extends not only to the land management agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency but also to the U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Agencies with the authority to make loans, loan guarantees, grants, equity investments or to conclude offtake agreements are directed to take steps to rescind any policies or regulations that discourage investment in coal production or coal-fired electricity generation. Of interest is Secretary Wright’s announcement of a $200 billion investment by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) Program as a key initiative supporting this Executive Order. That program is intended to serve “projects that retool, repower, repurpose, or replace energy infrastructure that has ceased operations or upgrade operating energy infrastructure to avoid, reduce, utilize, or sequester air pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions.”
Next, agencies that have programs that facilitate or advocate for financing of energy projects, including the Export-Import Bank and the International Development Finance Corporation, are directed to review any materials, including, among others, regulations, guidance, international agreements of “internal bureaucratic processes,” to ensure that those agencies are not discouraged from financing coal mining and electricity generation projects.
Powering AI Data Centers: The EO directs DOI Secretary Burgum, DOE Secretary Wright, and USDA Secretary Rollins to submit a report within 60 days identifying regions where coal-powered infrastructure is suitable and available for supporting AI data centers and evaluating the potential for expanding coal-based infrastructure to power data centers to meet the electricity needs of AI and high-performance computing operations. Assessing where and how these regions might intersect with the areas that DOE is seeking to identify in its Request for Information on siting AI infrastructure on DOE lands will be important, given the broader goal of co-locating data centers with power generation.[9]
Accelerating Coal Technology: The EO directs Secretary Wright to accelerate the development, deployment, and commercialization of coal technologies, including through funding mechanisms. Such technologies include those that utilize coal and coal byproducts such as building materials, battery materials, carbon fiber, synthetic graphite, and printing materials. In his April 8, 2025 statement, Secretary Wright announced his support of technology to extract critical minerals from coal ash and commercialization of these coal ash conversion technologies.
[1] See Executive Order, Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241 (Apr. 8, 2025); Executive Order, Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources to Promote American Energy (Apr. 8, 2025); Executive Order, Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid (Apr. 8, 2025); Proclamation, Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources to Promote American Energy (Apr. 8. 2025).
[2] Recent analysis projects that data centers could account for up to 44% of national electricity load growth from 2023 to 2028. In 2023, data centers consumed 176 terawatt hours (TWh) of energy, 4.4% of total U.S. electricity usage. By 2028, increasing demand and reliance on AI infrastructure will cause data centers to double or even triple their energy consumption to consume between 325 to 580 TWh, roughly 6.7% to 12% of total U.S. electricity.
[3] U.S. EIA, Planned Retirements of U.S. Coal-Fired Electric-Generating Capacity to Increase in 2025 (Feb. 25, 2025), https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=64604.
[4] U.S. EIA, Levelized Costs of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2023 (Apr. 2023) (showing that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from coal technology is significantly higher than LCOE from onshore wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, and combined cycle natural gas technologies, even adjusting for federal tax credits), https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/electricity_generation/pdf/AEO2023_LCOE_report.pdf.
[5] DOI separately announced that it would disburse $13 million in grants to North Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas to support the reclamation of abandoned mine lands.
[6] Interim Final Rule, Removal of National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Regulations, 90 Fed. Reg. 10610 (Feb. 25, 2025).
[7] For a detailed summary of EO 14241, see our prior update.
[8] The Energy Policy Act of 2020 defines “critical mineral” as “[a]ny mineral, element, substance, or material designated as critical by the Secretary of the Interior, acting through the director of the U.S. Geological Survey.” “Critical material” is defined as “Any non-fuel mineral, element, substance, or material that the Secretary of Energy determines: (i) has a high risk of supply chain disruption; and (ii) serves an essential function in one or more energy technologies, including technologies that produce, transmit, store, and conserve energy; or a critical mineral, as defined by the Secretary of the Interior.”
[9] See our update on the DOE RFI here.
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