Energy Group Excited By Trump Executive Order On Environmental Regulations
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Steve Milloy, the Senior Policy Fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, praised Donald Trump's executive order rolling back environmental regulations, telling Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that the coal industry is poised to benefit greatly from the decision.
"President Trump's action is going to bring the EPA back within the law. It's going to take the EPA's boot off the coal industry's throat. The coal industry is going to be able to operate more freely. I think there are other energy policies of the Trump administration, that they're going to green light the export of natural gas. It's going to change the market for energy in this country. It's going to raise gas prices. It's going to make coal more competitive with gas. Utilities are going to be under less political pressure to stop using coal. The whole dynamic is going to change and the outlook is going to improve for the coal industry."
He expects more opportunities for mining to open up and the potential for exporting more energy abroad to increase.
"Part of the executive order is going to permit coal mining on federal land's again. That's an important part in the West. There's huge veins of coal out there, right on the surface that should be available to the industry. It's going to open those up. The world is hungry for energy. They want coal. They want natural gas. We've got plenty of both. We need it ourselves. This is a great move for the American energy industry."
Milloy also took issue with the term 'clean coal,' calling it unnecessary and redundant.
"The way we burn coal is scrubbed earlier, with all the scrubbers. It's clean. We have the cleanest air in the world. Next to China, we burn the most coal. Our coal is clean already. It doesn't need to be any cleaner. We have all this technology and if your idea of clean coal is that there's no carbon dioxide, well, that's what climate skeptics are debating about. CO2 is colorless. It's odorless. It's necessary for life. It's role in global warming is extremely debatable. Global warming is extremely debatable. So, clean coal, I think, is just a silly idea."
