ASP COO Andrew Holland in POWER Magazine
On August 21, 2019, ASP COO Andrew Holland published an article in POWER Magazine on the Trump administration’s pro-coal energy policies. Holland writes,
“’The Trump administration’s latest pro-coal gambit is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) so-called Affordable Clean Energy rule, an about face on Obama-era limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The energy produced as a result of this rule will be neither ‘affordable’ nor ‘clean.’”
It is clear, according to Holland, that President Trump believes that fighting for coal jobs in communities devastated by the changing U.S. economy reinforces his campaign pledge to “Make American Great Again.” However, Holland claims that political choices should not be allowed to make rules under the Clean Air Act. He adds that coal is losing out to other energy sources, not because it’s under attack, but because the market has spoken.
Holland argues,
“More than half of the operating coal mines in the U.S. have closed since 2008, and coal consumption last year was the lowest in nearly four decades.”
He added,
“Over the past several years alone, 29 GW of retiring coal plants in PJM—America’s largest wholesale electricity market—have been replaced with 23 GW of natural gas.”
