Republicans move to revive Trump's 'beautiful clean coal industry' after Biden shut it down
EXCLUSIVE: The House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to revive the National Coal Council and "reinvigorate America’s beautiful clean coal industry," as President Donald Trump put it.
Committee Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., told Fox News Digital the National Coal Council legislation will successfully pass out of his committee Wednesday and have a good chance of passing the full House.
Reps. Michael Rulli, R-Ohio, and Riley Moore, R-W.V., are leading the legislation to reestablish the council, effectively canceled by former President Joe Biden, and support the clean coal industry for a multitude of reasons, including energy security at a time of Middle East uncertainty.
Rulli told Fox News Digital the Biden administration’s endeavors against the council and the coal industry writ-large were a "deliberate" effort to "wipe out coal, kill jobs, and make America dependent on foreign energy."
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The National Coal Council was key to improving lower-emissions technology and a crucial piece of the Energy Department’s toolkit. It was disbanded in 2021 after the Biden administration allowed its charter to lapse.
Originally formed in the 1980s as a 50-member advisory committee, it has guided government on the coal market and coal-sector technologies through five administrations.
The Biden administration let the council’s charter lapse during his term. Then-Rep. David McKinley, R-W.V., also confirmed such at the time.
"Time and time again, we see that energy security is national security," Guthrie told Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
"In order to protect American families and businesses and insulate ourselves from adversarial nations, it’s time to take action to secure our grid and promote the production of baseload American energy."
Guthrie added the Iran situation is another reminder of why Congress must act to "unleash American energy and ensure that we can produce domestically the power our communities rely on."
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Domestically, coal power supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, including in Guthrie’s Kentucky, Rulli’s Ohio and Moore’s West Virginia.
"President Trump knows that coal is the key to unleashing American energy dominance, reindustrializing the heartland, and winning the AI arms race. The National Coal Council will play a vital role in those efforts," Moore told Fox News Digital.
"With our global competitors constantly bringing new coal plants online to power their economies, we can’t afford to fall behind," he added.
The bill further acts on Trump’s Executive Order 14241 focusing on clean coal and will help meet the rise in electricity demand needed for the exponential projected growth in AI data centers around the country.
Proponents also hope it will bolster coal as the power source needed to onshore manufacturing and supply chains; another goal of the political right.
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Rulli said the original council was a "pillar" of U.S. energy policy and a "voice for an industry whose workers built this nation and powered our economy. Its elimination was no accident."
"The left wants to shut it all down for good," he said.
"This bill won’t let that happen … We must restore the National Coal Council and defend the energy backbone of this country—before it’s too late."
Rulli said just as in West Virginia and Kentucky, where his colleagues hail from, Ohio’s coal industry drove its manufacturing sector for decades, providing thousands of good-paying jobs in his Youngstown district.