“I think they’re buying it.”
Credit: Kevin Dietsch-Pool

Donald Trump campaigned for president with intense support from coal miners and coal mining communities. He promised them the moon: mines would reopen, their jobs would come back, and their communities would thrive.

Like many of Trump’s promises, these are impossible to keep, but he’s been making a real effort (more than you can say about his other promises). Part of that effort was instructing Rick Perry, head of the Department of Energy, to figure out a way to stop so many coal-fired power plants from closing.

Perry dutifully came up with a plan (albeit a bonkers plan), but it requires the cooperation of federal regulators. Specifically, Perry asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to pass a new rule that would bail out coal plants.

Now the deadline is approaching, and FERC faces a fateful decision: whether to go along or not. FERC is within its rights to say no, to ignore Perry’s proposal or pass a different rule of its […]