Interior Secretary nominee Ryan Zinke.
Credit: Gage Skidmore/flickr
If confirmed, Zinke, a second-term congressman from Montana and former Navy SEAL, would oversee all the nation’s national parks and more than 500 million acres of federal public lands, mostly in the West. He would be responsible for all the coal mining, fracking and oil drilling on public lands and waters off of all U.S. coastlines, and for permitting all new offshore wind power development.
Trump vowed during his campaign to breathe new life into America’s coal industry, which he said has been hit too hard by environmental and climate regulations. In reality, coal is in decline mainly because of cheap natural gas, which electric power companies are beginning to use more than coal to generate electricity.
“The war on coal, I believe, is real,” Zinke said. “All-of-the-above is the correct (energy) policy. Coal is a great part of that energy mix. I’m also a great believer that we should invest in research and development on coal — because we know we have the asset — to […]
The federal government should not engage in subsidizing any particular energy resource. Solar, wind and natural gas will likely further marginalize use of coal simply on cost and availability. Trump may try to reanimate coal but it is unlikely to be much beyond just a small but significant part of our legacy baseload production. New capacity will follow the trend of solar, wind and nat gas because they are price competitive & undergoing technological improvement. Coal is a limping horse unlikely to catch up in the race.