CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed several changes that would affect the struggling U.S. coal industry.
Trump issued executive orders this month to allow mining on federal land. He has used his emergency authority to allow some older coal-fired power plants set for retirement to keep producing electricity to meet the rising demand amid the growth in data centers, artificial intelligence and electric cars.
The Republican president also granted nearly 70 older coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from federal requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals.
Trump’s government efficiency team, run by Elon Musk, made plans earlier this year to terminate the leases of 34 U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration offices in 19 states.
Coal’s decades-long decline
The coal industry once provided more than half of U.S. electricity production. But it has been in steep decline for decades as operators went out of business and utilities installed more renewable energy and converted coal-fired plants to be fueled by cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas.
U.S. coal production was at 1 billion tons (907,000 metric tons) in 2014 and fell to 578 million tons (524 million metric tons) by 2023, the latest year available, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Coal employment nationally peaked in the 1920s when there were about 900,000 miners. It was at about 350,000 in 1950 and has declined steadily since 1980. After the coronavirus pandemic, employment rebounded from 2022 to 2023, rising 4.2% to 45,476. West Virginia employed the most miners at 14,000, followed by Kentucky at 5,000. About half of the nation’s 560 coal mines are located in West Virginia (165) and Kentucky (112). Despite having just 15 mines, Wyoming was the highest-producing coal state due to mechanization and more accessible coal.
Mining fatalities over the past four decades have dropped significantly. There have been 11 or fewer deaths in each of the past five years, according to MSHA.
Targeting MSHA
MSHA is responsible for enforcing U.S. mine safety laws. It is required to inspect each underground mine quarterly and each surface mine twice a year. The cuts proposed by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency would require MSHA inspectors to travel farther to get to a mine, and that could mean less thorough inspections, said Jack Spadaro, a longtime mine safety investigator and environmental specialist who worked for that agency.
According to the DOGE website, ending the MSHA leases is projected to save $18 million. It is unclear whether inspectors’ positions and other jobs from those offices would be moved to other facilities.
Seven of the MSHA offices set for closing are in Kentucky and four are in Pennsylvania. West Virginia is among the states with two targeted offices. Also under consideration for closure are the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement facilities in Lexington, Kentucky, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, shrinking the national footprint of an agency created during the Carter administration to restore land damaged by strip mining, and reclaim abandoned and damaged mine lands.
A recent review of publicly available data by the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center indicates that nearly 17,000 health and safety inspections were conducted from the beginning of 2024 through February 2025 by MSHA staff in the facilities on the chopping block.
What other uses are there for coal?
Industry advocates have long contended that there are other uses for coal, some of which use cleaner technology.
Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based Core Natural Resources is working to develop a process using West Virginia coal to create a synthetic material that can be used as an anode for lithium-ion batteries, reducing U.S. dependence on countries such as China, according to Matthew Mackowiak, the company’s director of government affairs.
Core recently acquired a company that turns coal into carbon foam that produces composite tooling used to make nose cones and plane wings for the U.S. defense industry.
“Whether or not there is any more coal-fired generation in the future, obviously that’s something else to talk about in the future,” Mackowiak said. “But at the very least, we need to be focused on maintaining our current coal fleet.”
