President Donald Trump followed through with his pledge to boost the nation’s declining $28 billion coal-mining industry by signing four executive orders designed to keep coal-fired power plants operating and to encourage more mining to fuel accelerating electricity demand.
“This is a very important day to me because we’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned despite the fact that it was just about the best, certainly the best, in terms of power, real power,” Trump said in the White House before he signed four executive actions Tuesday on a stage shared with about 15 helmeted coal-miners in overalls.
Counting Tuesday’s four coal-related directives, Trump has now issued 115 executive actions since taking office on Jan. 20, including about two dozen related to energy in implementing his policy to use the nation’s abundant fossil fuels—oil, natural gas, coal—to generate affordable power while simultaneously exporting liquified natural gas to pare down the $37 trillion federal debt….