Trump just failed to stop two more coal plants from closing. As I’ve written about previously here, last year saw a near-record amount of coal removed from the U.S. power grid. This trend shows no sign of slowing significantly in 2019.
In what should have been an unremarkable, routine decision, the Tennessee Valley Authority just voted to close two more aging coal plants that are no longer profitable to run. What made this a national news story is that at the last minute, Trump found it necessary to insert himself into the debate (via tweet, of course), and publicly urge the TVA to keep one of the plants open. His effort failed spectacularly.
The TVA made it quite clear that its decision to close the Bull Run Plant in Tennessee and the Paradise 3 Plant in Kentucky (which was singled out in Trump’s tweet), had nothing to do with environmental regulations or a “war on coal.” Rather it was due to the cold, hard economic reality that the plants are no longer profitable to run in the face of competition from other energy sources. You can read more here.
Lately it’s seemed like the inevitability of coal’s demise might finally be penetrating even Trump’s dim consciousness. He refrained from mentioning coal at all in his State of the Union speech, perhaps recognizing that doing so would only call more attention to one of his failures. Indeed, a good political strategy for Trump about now would be to shut up about coal and just let the polluting industry quietly meet its inevitable end.
Of course, being Trump, he instead had to take the completely unnecessary step of jumping publicly into a decision he had no real ability to influence. In the normal course of things the TVA’s vote to retire two more failing coal plants would probably have been hardly noticed by anyone outside the affected states (and by few people even in those states). Instead, it became a national news story that further highlighted Trump’s failure to make good on one of his impossible campaign promises.
Too bad Trump never learns from his mistakes.