Can Trump Truly Revive Coal Jobs and Industry?: QuickTake Q&A

In his efforts to dismantle environmental regulations on domestic energy production, U.S. President Donald Trump aims to deliver a key campaign promise that helped him lock up the vote in coal country: to revive the coal industry and restore lost mining jobs. Energy analysts tend to conclude that he might be able to stabilize what has been a declining industry, but probably not to the point of making it blossom. And even if he could accomplish that, mining jobs aren’t likely to come back in any numbers worth trumpeting.

He issued an Executive Order Mar. 28 that he said would lift a moratorium on the sale of new coal leases on federal land and reevaluate the Clean Power Plan, which was designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation by 32 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. An initiative of Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, the Clean Power Plan has been in legal limbo since the Supreme Court stayed it while it was reviewed by a federal appeals court. Under Obama’s presidency, the U.S. forced the closing or costly upgrade of coal plants because burning the fuel emits almost twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas and 28 percent more pollutants than heating oil.