November 13, 2025 - The future of West Virginia’s coal industry was the topic of conversation with U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin, who toured several power plants in the southern coalfields of West Virginia Wednesday.

Since Zeldin took the position in January, he has been on a tour in the U.S., and his visit to West Virginia on Wednesday marked his 49th state.

The goal of his visit was to speak directly to employees and industry leaders at the manufacturing plants to best understand how the EPA can work with them.

In a press conference, he spoke of the future of coal in West Virginia, although several areas of the state, such as First Energy in Morgantown and CPV Shay Energy in Doddridge County, are using natural gas power plants.

He says the Trump administration wants to see the life extended on several coal plants in West Virginia to grow the economy and secure employment.

“I have continued to see coal plants that were about to close staying open. They are continuing to invest in capital improvements. And now, instead of closing the doors, they’re expanding their operations,” Zeldin said in the press conference.

Zeldin added that he wants to see an end to the Biden administration’s Clean Power Plan 2.0, something he and Senator Capito have been working to end together, and he says the EPA has been working to upgrade multiple facilities to keep coal.

“The amount of opportunity early unleashing energy dominance right here within West Virginia is something that the Trump EPA, working with the National Energy Dominance Council and working closely with the president himself. We want to do everything in our power to help West Virginia succeed and thrive,” Zeldin said.

He said the EPA is also focused on growing the economy while they update coal-fired power plants.

“If you want to talk about creating new energy capacity, building new plants, whether it’s nuclear, it’s gas, it’s coal, building new pipelines, whatever the conversation is in that region and in that locality in that state, it’s all about making the economics work,” Zeldin said.

He was joined by Senator Capito at the press conference, who is the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW).

“We know that President Trump and the administrator, Zeldin, are know that we need every single power source that we can and elongating not just our power plants, but also being able to create new power plants is going to be essential,” Capito said.

Governor Morrisey also spoke at the press conference.

“There is a unique opportunity available for our state now to really grow and leverage our energy resources to be a major part of the American energy dominance movement that President Trump has been talking about.” Morrisey said.

In September, the Trump administration invested nearly $625 million toward America’s coal industry.