Trump Wins Another Fake Award—but He Actually Deserves This One

Here are the policies the president is embracing as the “Undisputed Champion of Coal.”

Last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright convened the National Coal Council for the first time since the organization was disbanded under President Biden. He extolled the administration’s work forcing aging coal plants to stay open, and hinted at further handouts to come. Now we’re starting to get a sense of what those handouts might look like.

This week, the Trump administration announced that it would, as promised last summer, revoke the so-called “endangerment finding”—a key scientific finding from 2009 on which almost all federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions is based. It will also order the Defense Department to purchase electricity from coal-fired power plants, and the industry will get a 33-month extension on cleaning up coal-ash dumps containing mercury, arsenic, and other toxins (all of which are expected to seep into groundwater in the meantime). Administration officials speaking to The Wall Street Journal ahead of the Wednesday announcement additionally said the administration would “award funding to five coal plants in West Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina and Kentucky to recommission and upgrade the facilities” and that “Trump will be awarded the inaugural ‘Undisputed Champion of Coal’ award by the Washington Coal Club.”

Trump famously covets fake awards that stroke his ego, but it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t deserve this one.

The revocation of the endangerment finding, which determined that greenhouse gases harm public health, is the biggest news. But propping up coal is societally consequential in its own right, and few think it’s a good idea. It’s economically unsustainable, and aside from warming the planet, coal combustion has been linked to respiratory problems, heart problems, cancer, cognitive impairment and decline, and death. In 2023, a study from George Mason University found that exposure to fine particulate pollution from coal combustion was associated with more than twice the mortality rates linked to fine particulate pollution from other sources.

In fact, pretty much everything that the Trump administration has proposed doing this week polls poorly—and not just with Democrats.

In 2023, Data for Progress found that 65 percent of all likely voters supported proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations restricting coal- and gas-fired plant pollution—and half of Republicans did too. More recent polling conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the GMU Center for Climate Change Communication found that 66 percent of all registered voters, including a majority of moderate Republicans (57 percent), favor transitioning the economy to 100 percent clean energy by 2050. Shockingly, even 26 percent of conservative Republicans support this. And 74 percent of registered voters want to see carbon dioxide regulated “as a pollutant”—including 76 percent of moderate Republicans and 45 percent of conservative Republicans.

This is the data you should keep in mind when reading New York Times reporters Lisa Friedman and Maxeline Joselow’s meticulous story about the small, behind-the-scenes team that has been working for years to overturn the endangerment finding. While “conservative groups and businesses immediately fought to dismantle” the finding in 2009, they write, most corporations had given up by 2017 “as they lost legal challenges and public concern about global warming began to grow.” Officials in the first Trump administration actually rejected calls to revoke the finding, even during their wild dash to undo as many environmental regulations as possible on their way out the door in January 2021.

But a few key people—specifically Trump allies Russell Vought and Jeffrey Clark, as well as “lesser-known conservative attorneys” Mandy Gunasekara and Jonathan Brightbill—refused to give up, and during the Biden administration they began drafting “a comprehensive strategy for reversing the finding on ‘Day 1’ of the next Republican administration,” working “in secret ‘to prevent media and other conflicted sources from shaming participants and undercutting the work before it is done.’”

Businesses weren’t pressing for it anymore, most mainstream Republicans weren’t pressing for it anymore, and, to hear Joselow and Friedman recount the opinion of one former Trump transition adviser, “the years of work of conservative activists might have gone nowhere if a different Republican had won the presidency.”

Or, to put it another way, almost no one wanted this. Instead, both the polling data and the Times report show that a handful of extremely dedicated ideologues—not even fossil-fuel executives—toiled in secret and found, in Trump, a useful random-number generator who was willing to turn their incredibly unpopular position into policy. Cue the rejoicing from coal companies and the like, who weren’t even aware something this politically implausible was an option.

On the one hand, the fact that no one wants these handouts for coal means that the potential for backlash—as with almost everything else this administration seems to be pursuing—is significant. On the other hand, not all of this damage will be easy to undo.

Stat of the Week6.4 degrees Fahrenheit

That’s how much February temperatures have risen since the last time Cortina, Italy, hosted the Winter Olympic Games, in 1956. Unsurprisingly, climate change is creating challenges for this year’s games.

Why this country declared an ocean current collapse a national security risk

This detailed report on what the collapse of the Atlantic Ocean’s current system could mean for Iceland was published Tuesday, six days after reporter Chico Harlan was told he was being laid off after 17 years at the Post, as part of layoffs that cut almost half of staff at the storied newspaper.

Sometime over the next 100 years, human-driven warming could disrupt a vital ocean current that carries heat northward from the tropics. After this breach, most of the world would keep getting hotter—but northern Europe would cool substantially, with Iceland at the center of a deep freeze. Climate modeling shows Icelandic winter extremes plunging to an unprecedented minus-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Sea ice could surround the country for the first time since it was settled by Vikings. “At that point, Iceland would be one giant glacier,” said Hildigunnur Thorsteinsson, the director general of the Icelandic Meteorological Office.… In October, the government classified the AMOC collapse as a national security risk. It amounts to a reckoning with national survival, as the country begins to absorb the idea that climate change won’t necessarily unfold linearly or predictably, and could bring changes beyond the scope of what a nation can cope with.

“At that point, Iceland would be one giant glacier,” said Hildigunnur Thorsteinsson, the director general of the Icelandic Meteorological Office.…

In October, the government classified the AMOC collapse as a national security risk. It amounts to a reckoning with national survival, as the country begins to absorb the idea that climate change won’t necessarily unfold linearly or predictably, and could bring changes beyond the scope of what a nation can cope with.

Read Chico Harlan’s full report at The Washington Post.

What Offshore Wind and the Kennedy Center Have in Common

The Trump administration tends to respond to defeats by getting even more aggressive.

On Monday, the Trump administration suffered its fifth consecutive courtroom defeat in its war on offshore wind. All of these cases stem from an order in December in which the Interior Department claimed that a classified Defense Department report had deemed offshore wind a “national security threat” and Interior was therefore “pausing” the leases on five already-under-construction offshore wind projects on the East Coast, “effective immediately.”

How, you may wonder, did offshore wind pose a national security threat? That’s unclear. The Interior order mentioned previous findings of radar interference but seemed to be suggesting that the information in the “Department of War” reports contained something beyond that.

Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, apparently reviewed the new classified report and didn’t buy it. So Sunrise Wind in New York, like the other four wind projects (including Vineyard Wind in Massachusetts, which is already sending power to the grid and was particularly useful during the recent winter storm), is free to proceed as the appeals process continues. “The administration is now 0-5 in its effort to stop wind farms under construction along the East Coast,” The New York Times’ Maxine Joselow noted.

This is not the only embarrassing result of the administration’s odd flurry of late-December energy orders. The administration has long claimed that coal plants have been unfairly demonized by environmentalists, that the country urgently needs fossil fuels, while—in Trump’s words at the World Economic Forum recently—“windmills” are “losers.” But two utilities are now petitioning the administration to, pretty please, let them close their coal plants as planned.

Craig Generating Station’s Unit 1 is one of several coal plants targeted by the administration’s unusual “emergency orders” to remain open past their scheduled retirement. Obviously, environmental groups aren’t thrilled: Previous research has found that some 460,000 deaths in the United States were attributable to coal plant pollution between 1999 and 2020. But reviving coal was always a pretty foolish economic proposition, as well. “Reopening closed coal plants makes no economic sense,” two analysts at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis wrote last summer. The reason is simple: “As coal plants age, maintenance costs rise, pushing up their generation costs, making them uncompetitive.”

This is now precisely what two power utilities are saying in their petition. Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and Platte River Power Authority, two co-operative utilities that run Craig Unit 1, along with three co-owners, weren’t just planning to close the plant to meet Colorado’s goal of phasing out coal by 2030. They were planning to close it because it’s extremely expensive to run, reports Canary Media’s Jeff St. John. One estimate suggests keeping the plant open merely 90 days could cost $20 million. The utilities are arguing, St. John writes, that “forcing them to operate it past December will require their members to bear unnecessary costs, which constitutes an ‘uncompensated taking’ of their property in violation of the Constitution.”

It’s one thing for environmentalists to point out that propping up fossil fuels makes no sense. It’s another thing for utilities themselves to say it.

Between this and being defeated five-nil on offshore wind, another administration might be feeling embarrassed right now (although not as embarrassed as it should have been for arguing that wind turbines pose a secret national security threat to begin with). And that’s typically the subtext when Bluesky liberals share these news stories—smugly or wryly noting further evidence of the administration’s consistent incompetence.

But this is a bit like Trump’s face-plant over the Kennedy Center—“an implicit admission of defeat,” in the words of The Atlantic’s David Graham. Trump now plans to close the storied D.C. arts institution for a complete reconstruction because, after a year with him at the helm promising to make the arts great again, droves of high-profile artists have canceled their performances and ticket sales have plummeted. It’s not working.

While it’s standard for political opponents to cheer when their adversaries are shown up repeatedly, there’s always a dark undercurrent to these stories when it comes to the Trump administration. The Kennedy Center has been a vital institution, and not just for Western high culture for well-dressed attendees, as originally intended, but through loads of free performances at its smaller stages, making arts from around the world accessible to residents in a way they wouldn’t otherwise have been and giving artists work and exposure they wouldn’t otherwise have had. Shutting it down will be a serious blow to the region’s arts.

This president doesn’t withdraw when humiliated. He just gets more vindictive and aggressive. And it’s worth emphasizing what that means on energy policy. As stupid and damaging as it is, the president’s attempt to revive coal is, to some extent, working. Coal plants aren’t just delaying retirement—they’re polluting more too, thanks to the administration’s environmental rollbacks. The toll of these policies will be measured in extra consumer costs, in health damage, as well as in lives and livelihoods lost in climate disasters.

Wind projects, likewise, may be free to proceed thanks to the courts but will suffer the effects of these delays. Wind investments are complicated. Delays are extremely expensive and have helped sink wind projects before. And it’s foolish to think that the administration will take the five-nil defeat and make its peace with renewables. Trump will just charge forward again like an enraged Don Quixote.

Stat of the Week565,744 kids

That’s how many live “within 3 miles of a power plant or other corporate polluter that has received a two-year free pass from President Trump to avoid complying with toxic air pollution limits,” according to a new report from the Center for American Progress.

EPA set to reapprove dicamba, an herbicide previously banned by courts

The bizarre contradictions in the Make America Healthy Again agenda continue to accumulate. The Washington Post recently reviewed an “unreleased statement” showing the Environmental Protection Agency plans to reapprove dicamba, an herbicide so prone to drifting (even more than a mile) from its area of application that it’s been known to kill loads of crops it was never intended to kill.

The statement also mentioned that the EPA’s review of dicamba found no risk to human health. Still, the decision could cause tension between the Trump administration and Make America Healthy Again activists who have advocated for more limits on herbicides and pesticides.“The use of this pesticide has been economically devastating and socially divisive, which is why the courts ruled for its removal,” said Kelly Ryerson, known as “Glyphosate Girl” on social media.

The statement also mentioned that the EPA’s review of dicamba found no risk to human health.

Still, the decision could cause tension between the Trump administration and Make America Healthy Again activists who have advocated for more limits on herbicides and pesticides.

“The use of this pesticide has been economically devastating and socially divisive, which is why the courts ruled for its removal,” said Kelly Ryerson, known as “Glyphosate Girl” on social media.

Read Amudalat Ajasa’s full report at The Washington Post.

This article first appeared in Life in a Warming World, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by deputy editor Heather Souvaine Horn. Sign up here.

What Would It Take to Eliminate Storm-Related Power Outages?

Many in the Southeast still lack power during a dangerous cold snap. Experts say a few changes could make these outages less likely.

Hundreds of thousands of households, mostly in the Southeast United States, were without power when a dangerous cold snap hit this week, just days after the previous weekend’s winter storm buffeted large swathes of the country. Officials in several of the affected states have warned that these outages could linger for some time—in Mississippi, one emergency management coordinator told CNN that they might last “weeks, not days.”

Power outages during severe weather events are increasingly common. And they can easily be fatal, particularly when paired with extreme temperatures. What would it take to at least reduce the frequency of these outages, even as the severe weather driving them increases?

“There are several points of failure that lead to these kinds of widespread power outages,” Gudrun Thompson, senior attorney and energy program leader at the Southern Environmental Law Center, told me by phone. She pointed not just to the most recent storm but also to Winter Storm Elliott, which hit the Southeast hard in 2022, and Winter Storm Uri, which devastated Texas in 2021.

Getting electricity into homes happens in a few stages: It begins with power generation, then transmission (where it goes to substations), and finally distribution to the homes themselves. Here, the amount of power demand also plays a role. “Each of these need to be tackled, and some of the solutions won’t address all three of these,” said Adam Kurland, a federal energy attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund.

But both Thompson and Kurland pointed to a few things that could make a difference. “On the supply side, the biggest thing is just having a portfolio of diverse resources,” Kurland said. Renewables aren’t just good from a climate and environment perspective, he said, “they are also usually the most reliable during extreme weather events, and that’s been proven out by a number of studies that have found that both gas and coal have resulted in bottlenecks during extreme weather events.”

That’s particularly true in some of the regions suffering from outages this week. “You’ve got this legacy power system where the electric grid is still in this very twentieth-century model of big central station power plants,” said Thompson. “You’ve still got coal plants running in the South, you’ve got some nuclear plants, you’ve got a lot of new and old gas plants.” And “in some of these winter storms, we’ve literally seen these piles of coal freeze, so they couldn’t run the coal-fired plants.”

Gas supply networks are similarly vulnerable, and were a major factor in the Texas outages in 2021. Initial analysis from the energy and climate policy firm Energy Innovation suggests gas generation within PJM Interconnection—the country’s largest grid operator, serving over 65 million people across the mid-Atlantic to the upper South and Midwest—fell by 10 gigawatts during this most recent storm.

This contradicts everything that conservative politicians, in particular, tend to say in the wake of these events—certainly after the Texas outages in 2021. “I often get asked by reporters, ‘What do you say to what the electric utility is saying about how this winter storm event just proves they need more gas?’” Thompson said. “It’s a false narrative. Clean energy resources are more reliable, more affordable, less risky for consumers, when you kind of put them all together as a portfolio. You can’t rely on any one source, so you’ll hear fossil industry apologists saying, ‘Well, the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow.’ That’s true,” she said, but no one’s advocating relying on a single source.

And that points to another thing........

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