It doesn’t matter how much faith coal workers put in Donald Trump: coal jobs are not coming back. The continued availability of natural gas and the general economics of coal plants have cause more than 300 plants to close in the last decade. Without those plants, there is simply nowhere to burn additional coal. And no one—no one—is building a new coal burning plant.
But just because Donald Trump stiffed every coal miner with his false promises doesn’t mean he can’t deliver for the owners of coal mines. In particular, Trump can allow streams to be destroyed despite regulations that were supposed to protect them.
The Stream Protection Rule revisions would be one more piece of the conservation puzzle. The original regulations, enacted more than 30 years ago, were intended to protect streams and their ecosystems from waste discharged during coal mining operations.
But those rules have fallen short, because rulings made in the 1980s allowed mine waste to be dumped in streams as “fill.” Multiple attempts have been made to alter this ruling, including very specific changes that were supported by Democrats in the House and Senate for more than a decade. President Obama is using the rules built into the Clean Water Act itself to finally close this loophole. But Trump could force it back open.
The revised rule has remained in bureaucratic limbo for months, and now some activists are worried the delays will make it easy for Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress to stop it from going into effect.
Even if it is placed in effect, it would be easy for the Republican-controlled Congress to craft a very specific override to re-break the Clean Water Act.
Mountaintop removal mining means destroying, for all time, mountains that are half a billion years old. It means destroying habitat in the middle of the world’s most diverse hardwood forest. It means burying miles of streams and rivers under toxic debris.
And for miners, it means fewer jobs, because mountaintop removal mining is more automated than underground mining and doesn’t have the reclamation jobs of other surface mines. Keeping mountaintop removal in business means more profit for mine owners, fewer jobs for miners.
For surrounding communities, it means poverty, poor education, and illness.
President Obama can, and should, hurry through the changes to the stream protection rules, but at this point, there is more than just Trump in the way.
According to Thom Kay of the environmental group Appalachian Voices, congressional Republicans who oppose the new rule may now be able to use an obscure law called the Congressional Review Act to overturn it. Under the CRA, Congress has 60 days after receiving a finalized rule to file a resolution disapproving it. If both houses pass the resolution, it goes to the president's desk, where it can be vetoed. (Last year, for example, Republicans in Congress attempted to use the CRA to overturn Obama's Clean Power Plan. Obama simply vetoed the resolutions.) But there will be a new president and a new Congress just days after Interior says the new Stream Protection Rule will be finalized. Trump—who has promised to revitalize the coal industry and to "rescind all the job-destroying Obama executive actions"—is unlikely to veto a resolution sent by majorities of his own party.