(Reuters) – The United States should restart shuttered coal-fired power plants under President Donald Trump’s national energy emergency declaration, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a video interview with Bloomberg News on Monday.
Doing so would help the U.S. to meet rising electricity demand that is being fueled by a boom in artificial intelligence, said Burgum, who chairs Trump’s National Energy Dominance Council, in the interview on the sidelines of the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston.
“I think as part of the national energy emergency which President Trump has declared we’ve got to keep every plant open. And if there have been units at a coal plant that have been shut down, we need to bring those back on,” he said.
At the beginning of the century coal generated more than half of U.S. power. It has now sunk to less than 20%, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Burgum said the U.S. could also keep existing plants open by streamlining environmental regulations imposed by past administrations.
“We can stop death by regulation,” he said. “Part of that we can do by taking a close look at some of the actual legality of some of the rule-making that was perpetrated against these industries.”
The Interior Department said in an email to Reuters it was committed to “revitalizing the coal industry through the reduction of regulatory barriers and the promotion of energy independence.”
(CERAWeek newsroom in Houston; Editing by Nia Williams)
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