Trump’s plans to revive coal mining to power AI data
centers were announced this week. The executive order calls for more coal
mining and burning. He wants to reclassify coal as a critical mineral. He also
noted that he would cut “unnecessary regulations that targeted the
beautiful, clean coal and “end the government bias against coal.”
He also directed some coal-fired power plants scheduled for retirement to
remain open, as his energy secretary previously indicated was a good idea. He
also wants to grow coal exports. He wants to boost the production of
metallurgical coal for steel production in order to support U.S. manufacturing.
“All those plants that have been closed are going to be
opened if they’re modern enough, or they’ll be ripped down and brand new ones
will be built,” Trump said in front of executives, workers and lawmakers
gathered at the White House on Tuesday. “We’re going to put the miners back to
work.”
I sincerely doubt that new coal-fired plants will be built,
despite his statement. I also sincerely doubt that those companies building
data centers, tech companies who have previously committed to using low-carbon
energy sources, will be open to powering their facilities with coal.
According to Bloomberg, he
directed Energy Secretary Chris Wright to:
“…aid the development of coal technologies, including more
ways to put its byproducts to use in batteries, graphite and building materials.”
The order also promotes mining coal on federal lands,
reducing royalty rates. Bloomberg also noted that he intends to waive
compliance with air toxics rules:
“Trump said he was granting the two-year waivers to 47
companies operating more than 60 coal plants across the country, effectively
allowing them to comply with less-stringent requirements.”
He also expressed the need to
increase our electricity capacity:
“We need more than double the energy, the electricity,
we have,” Trump said.
U.S. electricity production has been flat roughly for the
past few decades. We certainly do not need to double our electricity
production, although some small increases are likely due to AI data centers and
electrification.
Chronically Understaffed Mine Safety and Health
Administration (MSHS) Withdraws Mine Inspector Job Offers and Cuts Workforce
Less than a month ago, as
Bloomberg reported:
“The Trump administration withdrew as many as 90 mine
safety inspector job offers from people who had accepted and were undergoing
the on-boarding process at the US Mine Safety and Health Administration,
according to a letter from two House Democrats.”
How awful it must feel to be offered a job, accept that
job, and then have the offer rescinded (basically being fired) during
onboarding. I offered a person a job once and had to rescind the offer when I
unexpectedly lost the contract. I felt absolutely horrible about having to do
it.
Some MSHA offices are being
closed. Mine safety is extremely important since many miners
will continue to get sick and die from black lung disease and silicosis. According to an
article in Safety and Health Magazine:
“As of March 10, the DOGE website listed lease
terminations for more than two dozen MSHA offices in Alabama, California,
Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York,
Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West
Virginia and Wyoming.”
According to United Mine Workers Association President
Cecil Roberts:
“We will continue to do all we can to keep miners safe
where we represent the workforce,” Roberts said. “But in the absence of a union
and the absence of strong government enforcement, workers’ safety will be left
solely in the hands of employers. History has shown us time and time again that
doing so is a recipe for disaster, especially in the mining industry.”
Cuts are also planned for the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). Republican West Virginia Senator
Shelley Moore-Capito has come out against the cuts at MSHA and NIOSH. NIOSH is
a division of the CDC under the HHS Dept. led by RFK Jr. Capito noted:
“I understand getting rid of duplications and
overextensions and bloated, but in this case I have strong disagreements with
the Administration, and I will tell you that I will be having a phone call with
him in the next two hours where I will re-express this hope that he reopen this
aspect of something that’s important to our workplace safety.”
Apparently, the DOGE cuts
call for terminating leases at three dozen MSHA offices. Retired miner Stanley
“Goose” Stewart who survived the 2010 Upper Big Branch Mine explosion that
killed 29 miners:
“The proposals for MSHA are “idiotic,” Stewart said, and
would give coal companies “the green light to do as they please.”
The Trump administration likely wants mine safety
compliance to be ensured by state agencies, but MSHA was created in 1978 due to
the inadequacy of state inspectors. According to Jack Spadaro, a longtime mine
safety investigator and environmental specialist who worked for MSHA:
“It’s a stupid proposal made by stupid people who
obviously have no concept or no knowledge about mine safety.”
According to Robert Cash, a mine roof bolt operator in West
Virginia:
“It’s just a big scare around here. If we have a
disaster and they closed down an MSHA office close to us, now what’s the
response time to get someone out there to start the investigation?”
Under current law, MSHA is
required to inspect each underground mine quarterly and each surface mine twice
a year. Surface mining reclamation personnel will also likely be cut by the new
administration. An article in the Boston Globe notes:
“A review last month 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
staff at MSHA offices in the facilities on the chopping block. MSHA, which also
oversees metal and nonmetal mines, already is understaffed. Over the past
decade, it has seen a 27% reduction in total staff, including 30% of
enforcement staff in general and 50% of enforcement staff for coal mines.”
After MSHA was formed as part
of the Labor Department in 1978 mine fatalities and injuries dropped and stayed
down. In the past decade, they have dropped even further mainly due to coal
production dropping by about 42%. Mine mechanization, especially in Wyoming,
has led to less coal miners as well.
Carey Clarkson of the Labor
Dept noted that MSHA funding has been flat for years. I might add that it may
have been justified since mining dropped. He noted that 120 MSHA employees,
about 7% of the agency workforce, accepted the fork-in-the-road buyout offer.
No one yet seems to know what will happen to the employees currently working
out of the offices scheduled for closure.
Mine safety leaders are
saying these cuts are a recipe for disaster, Below is a snippet from an NPR’s
Justin Hicks talking to former MSHA chief Joe Main:
“HICKS: When the Upper Big Branch mine disaster
happened, Joe Main had just started as the head of MSHA. He says he inherited
an understaffed and inexperienced agency, and he worries it's worse off today.
JOE MAIN: It don't take a rocket scientist to figure out
we're on a similar path but on steroids right now.
HICKS: And Main says he's worried about a lack of pushback
from elected representatives, some of them the very same people who grilled him
in hearings after the disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine.
MAIN: The silence is just scary, that they're not just
asking questions, poking what the heck's going on here on behalf of the miners
and their families.
HICKS: The number of mining jobs has already increased in
recent years from coal to gravel quarries to lithium, all things we use every
day. The federal employee union says Trump's latest push for more mining also
means more workers to protect.”
NIOSH Respiratory Unit Cuts Another Recipe for Disaster
Cuts at NIOSH are affecting
miners’ access to healthcare. Black Lung is a horrible disease and must be
minimized and those exposed must be monitored and helped as much as possible.
Regular screening of miners’ lungs is essential to catching the early dangers.
Current law entitles miners to the service of health monitoring and regular
lung X-rays. Doctors in the monitoring units are trained and certified to
detect the beginnings of Black Lung and silicosis. Epidemiologist Scott Laney,
who was placed on administrative leave along with the rest of NIOSH’s
respiratory health unit in Morgantown, West Virginia, noted that the program:
“…singlehandedly reduced Black Lung Disease from
affecting nearly 40% of longtime coal workers to as low as 2%, around 2000. But
in recent years, lung disease for miners has become a major concern again,
Laney says, because coal increasingly comes from mines embedded in sandstone,
and which generates dust that’s 20 times more damaging to lungs than coal. That
means miners are getting sicker, younger — and without the monitoring of coal
miners, he says, people will die — and no one will be keeping score.”
According to NPR:
“Drew Harris, a pulmonologist and director of the Black
Lung Program at Stone Mountain Health, the only such free program in Virginia.
He says the coal worker health program is trusted and universally relied upon
in these communities.
“In Central Appalachia, it’s a big deal,” he says. “These
are towns that basically were built around coal mining, and coal miners are
like the heart and soul of this community and economic livelihood for
generations.”
“Harris says today’s mines are full of sand dust, and he
sees patients who, by age 40, need double lung transplants. Black Lung Disease,
he says, is not a thing of the past, and surveillance is still needed.
“If that goes away, then, you know, people won’t know that
they have Black Lung at an earlier age and more people are going to end up with
severe disease because they didn’t diagnose it earlier.”
Certainly, making coal great again should not include
making coal miners less safe and less able to detect diseases they have a high
likelihood of contracting.
Coal Has Many Impacts
Along with mine safety, there
are many ongoing environmental issues associated with coal production and
burning. Among them are acid mine drainage, mine subsidence, air pollution from
burning coal, and surface and groundwater water pollution from coal combustion
residuals (coal ash).
An event last week, flooding
along the Ohio River near Cincinnati, threatened a coal ash slurry pond from a
closed coal power plant, with the danger being that the rising surface waters
would cause the coal ash, which has high toxicity from heavy metals, to mix
with the groundwater, and potentially contaminate nearby water wells. Ohio
River alluvium below the river is a common groundwater aquifer. Apparently, the
Ohio EPA and Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) have jurisdiction but
did not visit the site to assess any flood damage, at least not quickly enough
for some local authorities. This is a state issue rather than a federal one,
but federal rules still apply in coal ash cleanup according to the CCR Rule.
References:
Trump
Signs Order to Expand Coal Power, Seeking to Fuel AI Boom. Ari Natter and
Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Bloomberg. April 8, 2025. Trump Signs Order to Expand Coal
Power, Seeking to Fuel AI Boom
Who
monitors coal ash pits, dams and floodwater at former Beckjord Coal plant? WCPO
Cincinnati, OH. April 7, 2025. Who monitors coal ash pits, dams and
floodwater at former Beckjord Coal plant? | Watch
Voices
from coal country say closures of MSHA offices will endanger mine safety. AP.
April 5, 2025. Voices from coal country say closures
of MSHA offices will endanger mine safety | AP News
Lawmakers
concerned about staff cuts, field office closures at MSHA. Safety and Health
Magazine. March 12, 2025. Lawmakers concerned about staff cuts,
office closures at MSHA | Safety+Health
Things
to know about the MSHA and the coal industry. AP. Boston Herald. April 5, 2025.
Things to know about the MSHA and the
coal industry
Capito
comes out against cuts at MSHA and NIOSH. Steven Moore. WTRF Wheeling. April 3,
2025. Capito comes out against cuts at MSHA
and NIOSH
MSHA Withdrawing
Offers for New Inspectors, House Democrats Say. Tre'Vaughn Howard. Bloomberg
Law. March 11, 2025. MSHA Withdrawing Offers for New
Inspectors, House Democrats Say
DOGE
makes cuts to mine safety agency as administration seeks mining expansion.
Justin Hicks. NPR Morning Edition. April 7, 2025. DOGE makes cuts to mine safety agency
as administration seeks mining expansion : NPR
Trump
revives ‘beautiful coal’ to power energy-hungry US data centers, EVs. Environmentalists
slam move as outdated, calling coal “dirty, uncompetitive, and unreliable.”
Sujita Sinha. Interesting Engineering. April 9, 2025. Trump’s coal comeback fuels US debate
as AI, EV power demands rise
Coal
miners’ health care hit hard in job cuts to CDC. Yuki Noguchi. NPR. April 9,
2025. Coal
miners' health care hit hard in job cuts to CDC - TPR: The Public's Radio
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