More than 13 million acres of federal land is open for coal leasing, the Interior Department announced Monday as part of a coordinated effort with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department to increase the domestic production and use of a fuel source that’s been declining in the U.S. for years.
The amount of land the Interior Department made available for coal extraction is triple the amount called for in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that President Donald Trump signed in July.
Trump has long prized coal as “beautiful,” “clean” and “abundant” despite much of the world moving away from the fossil fuel in favor of cleaner sources of energy such as natural gas, wind and solar. In April, he signed four executive orders — to end the moratorium on leasing federal lands for coal mining imposed during the Biden administration, to exempt some coal plants from various emissions standards, to legally challenge state laws obstructing energy production and to promote coal’s use as a power source for artificial intelligence data centers.
According to the International Energy Agency, coal power plants generate 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and are the largest single source.
“President Trump promised to put American energy workers first, and today we’re delivering,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement Monday, in which he also announced a reduction in the royalty rate coal producers have to pay for mining operations along with a plan to recover mining waste infused with critical minerals.
In accordance with the tax and spending bill the president signed over the summer, the royalty rate for coal producers dropped to 7% from the previous rates of 12.5% for surface-mined coal and 8% for underground coal. The Interior Department is also working with the U.S. Geological Survey to map mine waste and speed up projects that could help recover critical minerals like uranium, zinc and tellurium, which are used in defense technologies and manufacturing.
“We are strengthening our economy, protecting national security and ensuring that communities from Montana to Alabama benefit from good-paying jobs,” Burgum said.
Environmental groups immediately decried the federal agencies’ moves.
“The Trump administration’s reckless actions announced today will hurt the American people, all to prop up the aging and outdated coal industry,” Sierra Club Chief Program Officer Holly Bender said in a statement Monday, shortly after the Trump administration’s coal announcement.
“Rather than investing in clean, affordable energy to power our country, more coal will increase deadly air pollution, poison our water with harmful heavy metals and drastically worsen the health of our loved ones,” she said. “If this dangerous agenda continues to advance, years from now we will look around at failing health outcomes, skyrocketing bills and a decaying environment, and there will be one man to blame: Donald Trump and his Republican enablers.”
Intended to strengthen domestic supply chains and increase the production of American energy, the expansion of federal lands for coal mining was announced Monday during a meeting of the National Energy Dominance Council, where the EPA and Energy Department also announced actions to spur coal’s production and use as an electricity source.
The Energy Department announced it will invest $625 million to “expand and reinvigorate America’s coal industry,” according to a press statement. Of that, $350 million will go toward recommissioning and retrofitting coal-powered electricity plants.
An analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration earlier this year found U.S. coal production in 2023 was less than half of what it was in 2008. The EIA attributed the decline to rising mining costs, increasingly strict environmental regulations and competition from other sources of electric power generation.
As part of Monday’s announcement, the EPA proposed a rule to give coal-fired power plants extended deadlines to comply with environmental guidelines for mercury emissions. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin also announced he is requesting information on compliance viability, saying meeting environmental rules established during President Joe Biden’s administration to control wastewater pollution might disincentivize the use of coal.
The proposals reverse several rules the EPA finalized last year when Biden was in office, including the requirement that existing coal-fired plants reduce their greenhouse gas emissions 90% by 2032. In 2024, the agency had also strengthened its rules for coal-fired power plants to reduce toxic metal emissions and to reduce wastewater discharge pollutants such as coal ash that could leak into groundwater.
The EPA said its proposals would save Americans $200 million annually in electricity costs.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, energy prices are rising at double the rate of inflation. The most recent Consumer Price Index found electricity prices had risen 6.2% in August compared with a year earlier, whereas overall inflation was up 2.9% over the same period.