Trump Tries to Prop up Dirty Coal Plants—Again
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After trying and failing to prop up old, uneconomic, and dirty coal plants during his first term, President Trump’s administration is unveiling a new plan to try to boost coal mining and keep these aging plants from closing, according to published reports.
Coal now makes up about 16 percent of the electricity mix in the United States, down from 50 percent two decades ago. No new coal plant has been completed in more than a decade, and the average age of the current fleet is 53 years old. In 2025, 93 percent of the new power added to the grid in the United States will be from solar, wind or batteries, according to projections from the Energy Information Agency.
Coal pollution was responsible for 460,000 deaths between 1999 and 2020, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
The following is a comment from Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):
“What’s next, a mandate that Americans must commute by horse and buggy?
“Coal plants are old and dirty, uncompetitive, and unreliable. The Trump administration is stuck in the past, trying to make utility customers pay more for yesterday’s energy. Instead, it should be doing all it can to build the electricity grid of the future.
“Because it is the cheapest option, clean energy is growing faster every year, and that’s saving consumers money on their bills. A cleaner electric grid can also be more nimble and more reliable than one based primarily on fossil fuels.
“Trump tried this gambit in his last term. We fought it every step of the way—and it failed. With the gains made by solar, wind, and battery power since then, bailing out coal makes even less sense today. That’s why we will be fighting this plan, too.”
For more, please see this blog from NRDC’s Christy Walsh.
Background
In 2017, then Energy Secretary Rick Perry directed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue a rule providing for assured cost recovery (including a return on equity) for coal and nuclear plants. This would have increased customers’ utility bills to help pad the profits of the industry. But, in a bipartisan and unanimous ruling, FERC rejected the directive because the U.S. Department of Energy did not show a need to bail out the plants and ignored the cost of doing so. FERC also noted that because the plan excluded other types of power that could provide resilience to the grid, it was unduly discriminatory or preferential, violating a legal bedrock of FERC’s actions.
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Beijing and Delhi (an office of NRDC Indi\a Pvt. Ltd).