President Donald Trump signed executive orders Tuesday to bolster the country's declining coal industry, relaxing restrictions on coal mining, leasing and exports in what the White House said was an effort to meet the energy-intensive needs of artificial intelligence data centers.
The executive orders were the latest moves by the Trump administration that clash with global aims to reduce coal power and cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change. Standing before dozens of coal miners in uniform shirts and hard hats, Trump introduced the orders, repeatedly referring to "beautiful, clean coal." Coal is considered the dirtiest fossil fuel and historically the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Burning fossil fuels, which unleashes carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is the primary contributor to global warming. Trump's executive actions will keep open some coal plants that were set for retirement, allow coal leasing on public lands to resume and will direct the Department of Energy and other federal agencies to assess how electricity from coal-fired power plants can meet rising demand for power from artificial intelligence. A worker stands in the coal yard at the American Electric Power Co. coal-fired John E. Amos Power Plant in Winfield, W.Va., in 2018. Luke Sharrett / Bloomberg via Getty Images file The orders come as the Environmental Protection Agency under its new administrator, Lee Zeldin, has been aggressively rolling back various environmental regulations over the past month,…