The Beautiful Return of Common Sense
President Trump stood in the East Room Wednesday and did something that would’ve been unthinkable just four years ago. He signed an executive order making coal a cornerstone of national defense. Not a footnote. Not an apology. A cornerstone.
The order directs the Department of War to negotiate long-term power purchasing agreements directly with coal-fired plants. The goal? A more reliable electric grid that doesn’t collapse when the wind stops blowing or the sun decides to take a day off.
“We’re going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now,” Trump said, flanked by coal workers and Republican lawmakers who looked like they’d just witnessed a resurrection. “And it’s going to be less expensive and actually much more effective than what we have been using for many, many years.”
You know what’s remarkable about this moment? It shouldn’t be remarkable at all.
When Your Shower Works, Thank Coal
Trump pointed to recent winter storms that left more than 200 million Americans shivering across 35 states. The reason most people could still take a hot shower? Coal plants kept running while renewable sources went quiet.
That’s not an opinion. That’s physics meeting reality on a cold February morning.
The executive order itself carries the kind of title that makes environmental activists reach for their anxiety medication: “Strengthening United States National Defense with America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Power Generation Fleet.” It declares flatly that coal is essential to national and economic security. Not helpful. Not nice to have. Essential.
The document goes further, stating that the electric grid “must not be reliant on intermittent energy sources.” There’s that word again. Intermittent. It’s a polite way of saying unreliable, which is a polite way of saying your lights go out when you need them most.
The policy isn’t just about keeping the lights on during Netflix binges. Trump connected coal to steel production, shipbuilding, and even artificial intelligence infrastructure. All things that require massive, constant power supplies. All things that matter when you’re trying to maintain the world’s strongest military and largest economy.
The Green New Scam Gets Another Funeral
Trump didn’t miss the chance to draw contrasts with his predecessor. “On day one of this administration, I ended the war on coal,” he said. “We terminated the green new scam, and we withdrew from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate accord.”
That language isn’t accidental. Calling it a scam instead of a deal or initiative signals exactly how this administration views the previous eight years of energy policy. As fraud dressed up in virtue.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stood nearby, a visible reminder that this isn’t just presidential preference. This represents a coordinated effort across multiple agencies to rebuild America’s energy foundation on something more solid than good intentions and government subsidies.
The order tasks the Secretary of War, working with the Secretary of Energy, to approve these long-term agreements specifically for DOW installations and other mission-critical facilities. That’s military bases, command centers, research facilities. The places where the lights absolutely cannot go out, ever, for any reason.
Why This Actually Matters
Here’s what the coastal elites will never admit: energy policy is the most consequential domestic policy there is. Everything else depends on it. Your economy, your military readiness, your standard of living. All of it runs on electricity.
For decades, we’ve been told that coal is dirty, outdated, a relic. Meanwhile, China builds a new coal plant every week and laughs at our self-imposed handicaps. They’re not stupid. They understand that industrial civilization requires industrial-scale power generation.
Trump’s order recognizes something fundamental that got lost in the rush toward renewables. Reliability isn’t a luxury. It’s the baseline requirement. A grid that works 80% of the time is a grid that fails when it matters most.
Coal plants can run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They don’t care if it’s cloudy or calm. They don’t need massive battery arrays that cost billions and contain materials mined by children in African cobalt mines. They just work.
The president called coal “clean, beautiful coal,” which drives environmentalists absolutely insane. But he’s making a point about American energy independence and industrial capacity that transcends aesthetic debates about smokestacks.
This administration isn’t interested in making energy policy based on what plays well at faculty lounges or United Nations conferences. They’re making it based on what keeps America strong, independent, and warm in winter.
That used to be called governing. Now it’s called controversial.
The order will face legal challenges, media hysteria, and corporate pressure from companies that have spent billions betting on the green transition. None of that changes the underlying reality: America needs power it can count on, and coal delivers it.
Trump just bet the credibility of his defense policy on that fact. Time will tell if the country is ready to remember what it forgot.
Related: Trump’s EPA Just Pulled the Emergency Brake on a Trillion Dollar Climate Crusade