The Trump administration today announced a coordinated attempt to keep the struggling U.S. coal industry alive slightly longer, including opening more than 13 million acres of national public lands for coal mining, reducing royalty rates paid by mining companies to taxpayers and $625 million in federal funding for uneconomic coal plants across the country. In response, David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s climate program, said:

“President Trump’s coal giveaway is exactly the wrong direction for the country. It is clear that solar, wind and battery storage will provide nearly all affordable, clean energy in the near future, and expensive, dirty coal will be a relic of the past.

“Trump’s effort to block renewables and keep fossil fuels on life support only hurts Americans. It forces us to pay for unduly expensive energy and wasteful corporate subsidies, harms our health by polluting our air and water, and neglects to build up domestic manufacturing and supply chains for the energy technologies of the future while China races ahead.

“Other forms of energy are simply far less expensive than coal—as well as cleaner, cheaper, and safer for a climate habitable for humans. This bailout is nothing more than a wealth transfer from the American people to Trump’s billionaire friends sitting atop a failing industry.”

This post was originally published on Common Dreams.