A key congressional ally to Donald Trump said the Republican presidential candidate would focus his coal policies first on slowing down the industry’s rapid decline.
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who acts as an informal adviser to Trump on energy policy, was asked at a Politico event near the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Wednesday how many new coal-fired power plants would open under a Trump presidency.
{mosads}But he didn’t promise a rosy future for coal.
“I think the first thing you have to do is stop the bleeding,” Cramer responded, going on to say that Trump would then look to encourage “new technologies” to make coal a cleaner-burning energy source.
“The problem is that if we have policies like we have today that are designed to keep coal in the ground, shut it down at all costs, the innovators that could create the solutions, they’ll be out of business before they can create the solution,” Cramer said. “And we’re well on our way to a solution. But I think the race is, can they kill coal before we get to that solution?”
Trump made it a priority to court the coal vote in advance of the West Virginia primary.
“We’re going to get those miners back to work,” he said at May event there. “The miners in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which was so great to me last week, and Ohio and all over, they’re going to start to work again. Believe me. You’re going to be proud again to be miners.”
The West Virginia Coal Association went on to endorse Trump for president. He was the only remaining Republican candidate at the time of the state’s primary.
Trump has promised to roll back all of President Obama’s regulations that he deems to be harmful, including his climate change agenda.