Coal

The Biden-Harris administration is halting new coal leases in the Powder River Basin, ensuring that the U.S. will cease coal production there after 2041. The Powder River Basin, located in northeast Wyoming and parts of southeast Montana, is the largest coal mining area in the country. It produces subbituminous coal, prized for its low sulfur content, which is primarily used in power generation. The region is responsible for supplying 40% of the nation’s thermal coal . The Bureau of Land...

President-Elect Trump has made it clear that he is not a supporter of offshore wind energy, a stance he reinforced during his interview  with Joe Rogan. Offshore wind, according to Trump, disrupts fishing zones, threatens wildlife such as birds and bats, damages large sections of the ocean floor, jeopardizes the North Atlantic Right Whale’s survival, and burdens Americans with high electricity costs that are unreliable—operating at less than half capacity. Wind power, he argues, requires...

The Northeast region of the United States includes the states of West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, as well as the entirety of New England, which is made up of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.  The Northeast is an important region for fossil fuel production especially for coal and natural gas, which replaced coal as the primary fuel used for electricity generation in the region.  Transporting fuel throughout...

President-elect Donald Trump recently named Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy and founder of the Bettering Human Lives Foundation, as his choice for head of the Department of Energy. Chris Wright sat down for a discussion on the role of energy production in lifting humans out of poverty with the policy team at our sister organization, the Institute for Energy Research on the Plugged In Podcast.* The full episode is available below.

Links:

• Donald Trump names fossil fuel executive...

The Biden-Harris administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized a federal methane tax for oil and gas drilling operations, set to take effect next year. This rule is part of the broader Inflation Reduction Act , which was passed by Democrats and saw Vice President Harris casting the decisive vote. The new regulation imposes a fee on oil and gas producers who exceed a certain methane emission threshold by venting or flaring the gas rather than capturing it. While the...

The Biden-Harris administration has proposed tighter restrictions on oil and gas drilling on federal land across more than 6,500 square miles in the West to supposedly protect a declining bird species—the Greater Sage Grouse—chicken-sized birds known for an elaborate mating ritual. The Biden-Harris Interior Department aims to strengthen protections for the sage grouse beyond the 2015 measures set by the Obama-Biden administration . Those earlier protections limited development across...

New Mexico plays a vital role in American energy production, providing a substantial amount of oil and gas from a comparatively smaller population than its neighbor, the number one oil-producing state, Texas.  Accounting for an astounding 13.3% of all U.S. crude oil production in 2022, and increasing to an even 14% in 2023, due to further innovation in fracking, New Mexico consistently plays a key role in American oil and gas production holding about 13% of proved crude oil reserves in the...

Despite Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election and his campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill,” the Biden-Harris administration quickly acted to limit the scope of an oil-and-gas lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which had been mandated under Trump’s leadership. In 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which required at least two lease sales in ANWR’s 1.6 million-acre coastal plain by the end of 2024. The first of these lease sales  took...

California has the highest gasoline prices and one of the highest residential electricity prices in the nation due to its climate and energy policies. However, rather than own up to the real causes, California Governor Newsom is looking to camouflage the reality of his state’s policies, at least in the short term. Newsom wants to up the ethanol share in a gallon of gasoline from 10% to 15%  to lower the gas price in order to compensate for future price increases from tightening the...

Last night’s election results sent a clear message to our elected officials - the American people want a return to economic growth driven by the affordable and reliable energy that powers every sector of our economy. In a clean sweep across the country, Americans affirmed their support for President Trump’s commitment to reversing the harmful regulations and subsidy programs that have stifled American energy production and served as obstacles to economic opportunity.

In the 2024...