The Wittelest Pwesident Orders DOD To Buy Electricity From Coal-Burning Power Plants - And He Gets A Pwize!!!! [View all]

President Donald Trump plans to announce an executive order on Wednesday directing the U.S. Department of Defense to buy electricity from coal-fired power plants. The order, first reported by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by a White House official, comes as the administration plans to repeal the endangerment finding, a landmark climate ruling that determined greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health.

“President Trump will be taking the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash American energy dominance and drive down costs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a written statement. Environmental and security advocates blasted the order. “It’s expensive, it’s outdated, and it just puts us at risk,” said Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate & Security at The Council on Strategic Risks. “Coal is just going backwards, not forwards, for the Department of Defense.”

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The Department of Defense stated that it needed $5.1 billion to mitigate climate risk, according to a 2024 U.S. Government Accountability Office report. The Air Force estimated it would cost $3.6 billion to rebuild Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida after Hurricane Michael damaged it in 2018. The cost was part of the challenges the Department’s facilities face due to climate change and extreme weather, according to the GAO report.

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The Defense Department and U.S. Department of Energy are now working to identify which facilities and coal plants will be affected by the executive order. Separately, the administration will award funding to five coal plants in West Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina and Kentucky to recommission and upgrade the facilities, the White House confirmed. In addition, Trump will receive the inaugural “Undisputed Champion of Coal” award on Wednesday from the Washington Coal Club, a pro-coal group with ties to the fossil fuel industry, an individual familiar with the organization said. The award will recognize the administration’s broad support of the coal industry, the individual said.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/10022026/trump-department-of-defense-coal-power/