As a huge winter storm knocked out power for millions of people in Texas, a group representing the coal industry saw an opportunity. “Houston, we have a problem,” the organization Friends of Coal wrote on Facebook. “Coal is the solution.” Another post showed a solar panel covered in snow. “You are warm today because of a coal miner and a pipeline,” it read.

The posts are part of a torrent of conservative statements blaming renewable energy failures for the Texas blackouts. And though such attacks can be easily debunked (the main source of the energy shortfall is natural gas) they serve a larger political purpose: rally a political base that can take back Congress from the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections. 

“Everyone must help all across America within the industry,” the coal publication Coal Zoom wrote earlier this year. “The majority of the House must be won back in 2022.”News

The U.S. coal industry is in financial freefall due to competition from natural gas and renewables, as well as the economic shock of the […]