Coal is now a “critical mineral” under Amended Executive Order regarding Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production

The coal production Executive Order expands upon previous mineral production Executive Order 14241 to (a) designate coal as a critical mineral entitled to federal funding and deregulation and (b) declare its availability and use essential to U.S. national and economic security.

The Executive Order

On April 8, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry”, to amend Executive Order 14241 (“EO 14241”) regarding the accelerated production of critical minerals and to require additional actions from various federal agencies to support domestic coal production and its related power and emerging technologies sectors. The Executive Order mandates the Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council (“NEDC”) to entitle coal to the same benefits as other minerals (including the newly added uranium, copper, potash, and gold) designated in EO 14241, and calls upon multiple agencies (including the Department of State, Treasury, Interior, Energy, Agriculture, Labor, and Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and Export-Import Bank (EXIM), among others) to support domestic coal production.

Immediate Action of Coal Development and Mobilization

The Executive Order sets forth a series of deadlines through the next few months, requiring various federal agencies to take specific actions to aid domestic coal mining and utilization projects as follows:

• All agencies with authority to make loans, loan guarantees, grants, equity investments, or offtake agreements (in the U.S. or abroad) must take steps to rescind any policies or regulations discouraging investment in coal production and coal-fired electricity generation.  The Secretaries of State, Agriculture, Commerce and Energy, the Chief Executive Officer of DFC, the President of EXIM, and heads of all other agencies with discretionary programs concerning the financing of energy projects must review their internal rules and processes to ensure that financing coal mining projects and electricity generational projects is not discouraged (by May 8, 2025), and any identified preferences against coal must be immediately eliminated unless expressly provided for in statute.
• Each agency must identify to the Council on Environmental Quality any existing and potential National Environmental Policy Act exclusions that could further the production and export of coal if relied on / adopted by other agencies (by May 8, 2025).
• The Administrator of the EPA and the Secretaries of Transportation, Interior, Energy, Labor, and Treasury must identify any internal guidance, regulations, programs or policies that seek to transition away from coal production and electricity generation (by May 8, 2025) and consider revising or rescinding them (by June 6, 2025).
• The Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, and Energy must submit a consolidated report to the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, identifying coal resources and reserves on Federal lands (including analysis of coal availability and its impact on electricity costs and grid reliability) assessing impediments to mining such resources and reserves, and proposing policies to enable public or private sector solutions to such impediments (by June 6, 2025).
• The Secretaries of the Interior, Commerce, and Energy must submit a consolidated report to the Chair of the NEDC, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and the Special Advisor for AI and Crypto regarding  (a) regions with coal-powered infrastructure suitable for supporting AI data centers and (b) the market, legal and technological potential for expanding such infrastructure to power data centers augmenting AI and high-performance computing operations (by June 6, 2025).
• The Secretary of Energy must submit a detailed action plan outlining its proposals to accelerate the development, deployment and commercialization of coal technologies (i.e. utilization of existing funding mechanisms to support coal technology expansion, including technologies that utilize coal and coal byproducts such as building materials, battery materials, carbon fiber, synthetic graphite and printing materials, as well as updating coal feedstock for power generation and steelmaking) to the Chair of the NEDC (by July 7, 2025).

Ongoing Support for Domestic Coal Development

The Executive Order also requires various federal agencies to commit to ongoing programs to further support coal projects beyond the initial deadlines, as follows:

• The Secretary of the Interior must terminate the Jewell Moratorium (issued in 2016, prohibiting new coal leases on federal land) and expeditiously process royalty rate reduction applications from federal coal lessees.
• The Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture must prioritize coal leasing as the primary land use for public lands identified in the report submitted to the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and expedite coal leasing in such areas, including use of available emergency authorities and other opportunities for expedited environmental review.
• The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Secretaries of State and Energy, the U.S. Trade Representative, the Assistant to the President for National Security, and heads of other relevant agencies, must take all necessary and appropriate actions to (a) promote and identify export opportunities for coal and coal technologies and (b) facilitate international offtake agreements for U.S. coal.
• The Secretary of Energy must determine whether coal used in steel production meets the definition of “critical material” under the Energy Act of 2020, and, if so, take steps to place it on the Department of Energy Critical Materials List.  The Secretary of the Interior must determine whether metallurgical coal used in steel production meets the criteria to be designated as a “critical mineral” under the Energy Act of 2020, and, if so, take steps to place it on the Department of the Interior Critical Minerals List.

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