Today’s executive order takes a different path to boosting coal: artificially boosting demand. The order states, “The Secretary of War, in coordination with the Secretary of Energy, shall seek to purchase power from the United States coal generating fleet by approving long-term power purchase agreements, or entering into any similar contractual agreements with coal-fired power generation facilities to serve War Department installations or other mission-critical facilities.”
Its justification appears to come from an alternate reality that has little to do with the US grid. “It will be less expensive and actually more effective than what we have been using for many years,” Trump said at the event. “And then, with the environmental progress that’s been made on coal, it’s going to be just as clean.” None of this is true.
The executive order instead seeks to highlight coal’s purported ability to produce sustained power generation, boasting “the proven reliability of our coal-fired generation fleet in providing continuous, on-demand baseload power.” This appears to ignore the recent experience of Texas, in which coal plants contributed significantly to the collapse of the state grid after being taken offline for a variety of reasons.
However, the Trump administration has rarely let spurious justifications stand in the way of its preferred policy actions. The key action here is likely to lock the military into long-term contracts that will continue until the end of Trump’s term in 2029.
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