The world is trying to move off fossil fuels. Trump is staying behind by focusing on saving coal. There are more factors at play than the regulations that Trump is removing. Even some people in the industry are skeptical that coal jobs will come streaming back.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/24/investing/trump-coal-epa-regulation/index.html
Even Robert Murray, the CEO of the largest U.S. private coal miner, thinks Trump is going to have a hard time keeping his coal promises.
Coal employment "can't be brought back to where it was before the election of Barack Obama," the Murray Energy CEO recently told CNNMoney, adding that he asked Trump to "temper" his coal promises. |
Another quote from the Money article.
Despite Trump's best intentions and regulation-busting actions, experts don't believe they will be enough to save coal.
That's because coal has a fierce competitor in the form of natural gas. It's cheap, it's clean and there's a ton of it in the U.S. Plus, Trump himself supports expanded drilling of U.S. shale, the chief source of the boom in natural gas.
"The coal jobs aren't coming back," said James Van Nostrand, director of the Center for Energy and Sustainable Development at West Virginia University College of Law.
He called it "nonsense" to think lighter regulation will change that. "The coal industry is being pounded by market forces. It's not regulation," he said. |
Trump can attempt to remove regulations but what is he going to do about the natural gas competition?
I know Trump needs to try to help them for political reasons since they are part of his base, but he might not end up having much of an effect and we need to move toward renewable sources anyway. I'm glad to see that the rest of the world is continuing on despite Trump's actions.
