April 8, 2025 - President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders Tuesday aimed at reviving the long-declining coal industry by rolling back Democratic efforts to curb a source of energy that's a major pollutant.

Trump's mandates include instructing federal agencies to identify coal resources on federal lands, lift barriers to coal mining and prioritize coal leasing on federal lands.

In addition, Trump directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to acknowledge the termination of the Jewel Mortarium, which paused coal leasing on federal lands. He told agencies to rescind policies that seek to transition the U.S. away from coal. And ordered his administration to ensure coal-fired power plants are part of the nation's electric grid.

“We’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” Trump, flanked by coal miners in hard hats, said before signing four energy-related executive orders at an afternoon ceremony in the White House East Room. “We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on clean coal once and for all.”

The actions continue Trump's efforts to eliminate climate and environmental regulations that were pushed under former President Joe Biden as Trump looks to expand U.S. energy production.

The orders seek to save coal plants on track to be shut down. Among the targeted plants, Trump said he ordered Energy Secretary Chris Wright to "save" the Cholla Power Plant in Arizona, which was slated to close this month.

"We're going to keep those coal miners on the job and tell them to just remain calm," Trump said, "because we're going to have that plant opening and burning the clean coal ? beautiful, clean coal ? in a very short period of time."

On several occasions, Trump touted "beautiful, clean coal," borrowing a term from the coal industry. Yet the environmental concerns from burning coal ? a major contributor of carbon dioxide ? are well-documented.

Trump's orders are a blow to environmental groups that have worked to slow coal production.

“Donald Trump is hell-bent on dragging the United States back to the 19th century, complete with robber barons, smokestacks, crippling tariffs, and measles," Rachel Hamby, policy director of the environmental conservation group Center for Western Priorities," said in a statement.

"The free market has already made it clear that renewable energy sources are a cheaper and healthier path to meet America’s energy needs," she said.

In 2022, burning coal accounted for about 20% of the carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. and 55% of all carbon dioxide emissions from the electric power sector, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Coal production in the U.S. has been on the decline since the 2000s. In 2023, the U.S. produced less than half the amount of coal it did in 2008.

The five largest coal producers in the U.S. are Wyoming, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Illinois. Trump's signing ceremony included U.S. representatives, Republican senators and governors from some the country's largest coal-producing states.