The EPA has been at the center of the Trump administration’s agenda to reduce the regulations on industry, and Wheeler has been instrumental in seeing through rollbacks of major environmental policies.

“Those men that lost their lives in the #9 mine sacrificed and gave everything so coal miners today could have a safe place to work,” said Mike Caputo, vice president of the United Mine Workers of America International District 31.

Rapid population growth, extensive development, poor water management, and most critically, irresponsible forest management are principally to blame.

Even with the Paris climate accords signed in late-2015, global coal demand in 2017 rose for the first time in two years, as reported by the Paris-based International Energy Agency during its annual World Energy Outlook release week.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan welcomed the International Energy Agency report and its positive outlook for the nation’s coal sector.

This effort—the Coal FIRST (Flexible, Innovative, Resilient, Small, Transformative) initiative—will develop the coal plant of the future needed to provide secure, stable, and reliable power.