President Donald Trump spent more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds, rolled back environmental rules and tried to stop power plant closings to fulfill a vow he made to West Virginia coal miners in the 2016 campaign. But nothing he’s done is rescuing the coal industry. Since Trump’s inauguration, U.S. coal production—after a slight uptick in 2017—is expected to be down 31% this year from 2016 levels. By some estimates, more than five dozen coal-burning power plants have closed and although mining jobs remained steady before dropping this year, they didn’t increase.
“They’ve tried to do a lot but very little has been effective,” said Seth Feaster, an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an organization that focuses on transitioning to a diverse, sustainable and profitable energy economy. “It’s a pretty bleak picture for coal.”
The grim outlook for coal could take a political toll on Trump, whose 2016 victory was propelled by carrying the mining strongholds of West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Trump honed his appeal to working class Americans by donning a hard hat and promising to get miners back to work four years ago, but now Democrat Joe Biden is courting the same blue-collar voters.
“You can only do so much as president of the United States,” said Nicholas Akins, chairman of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co., one of many utilities replacing coal with renewable energy sources. “You really can’t fight the laws of economics and the laws of risk and the issues of development around new technologies.”