Remarks on Domestic Coal Production

The President. That's great. Fantastic. [Applause] Wow.

Strong. They're strong, and they're great. These are great people.

And thank you very much. This is a very important day to me, because we're bringing back an industry that was abandoned, despite the fact that it was just about the best—certainly the best in terms of power, real power.

And I'm very honored to be doing this. Other countries went to beautiful clean coal, and they've stayed there for many years, like China. China is opening two plants every week.

Germany went green, very green. They went so green, they almost went out of business. They—Germany was finished. They went to wind. The wind wasn't blowing too much, and they went to all sorts of other things. You know, the "green new scam" hit Germany too. And guess what? Now they're back to coal. They're opening up coal plants all over Germany. We're the ones that aren't doing it.

I call it beautiful clean coal. I tell my people, "Never use the word 'coal,' unless you put 'beautiful clean' before it." [Laughter] Right, Doc? So we call it beautiful clean coal. Beautiful clean coal.

So today—[applause]. Thank you. Today we are taking historic action to help American workers, miners, families, and consumers. We're ending Joe Biden's war on beautiful clean coal once and for all. And it wasn't just Biden. It was Obama, and there were others. But we're doing the exact opposite.

And all those plants that have been closed are going to be opened if they're modern enough. Or they'll be ripped down, and brandnew ones will be built. And we're going to put the miners back to work. And I said I was going to do this, and I've said it loud and clear, and it's time to do it. And we need it.

And I look at these people behind me. I don't want to have any arm-wrestling contests with any of them. [Laughter] But they've had a little more practice with the—with lifting things, I will say. But they are great people. And I know them, indirectly and directly, for a long—that includes you guys—for a long time, and they're great people and with great families and come from areas of the country that we love and we really respect.

And I want to thank Secretary Doug Burgum for doing such an incredible job. From the day I met him, I knew I wanted to have him in my Cabinet. He took a shot at running, and he was so good and so solid that he made no news. [Laughter] And that was good. But I saw him, and I saw his beautiful wife Kathryn, and I said that they're going to be a team. They are a great team, and they're going to be working for this country someday. And one of the first people I called after I won. So thank you very much.

And along with the Energy Secretary, Chris Wright. And I was going to make Doug, actually, the Energy Secretary. And he said, "Sir, you have one person who is much better than me at this: Chris Wright." I said: "Who the hell is Chris Wright? I have no idea who he is." [Laughter] And then I learned that he's the most respected person in the energy business, by far—far and away.

For Doug to say that—Doug has got a big ego. It was very tough—for him to say that. [Laughter] Kathryn was there. Right, Kathryn? You said: "Wow. I've never heard that before."

But, Chris, you guys are fantastic. Stand up. All three of you, please stand up.

Great. [Applause] Great. That's a great team. It's—no better team than that. And they're going to produce energy the likes of which nobody has seen before.

You know, we need—to do the AI, all of this new technology that's coming online, we need more than double the energy, the electricity that we currently have. You take all of the electricity in the country right now for houses, for buildings, for everything. We need to more than double it to be number one. We're now way ahead of everybody at AI. China is in second place, but way behind. And they're going to be producing a lot of energy and a lot of electricity for this, and so are we. And we're going to get approvals very fast.

And I would say the man that's almost comparable to you, in terms of the importance to this—maybe he's even more comparable, I hate tell you—a guy named Lee Zeldin, who is a friend of mine for a long time, who is a great—Lee was a great lawyer, and he ran for office, and he won immediately. I gave him a very important endorsement. [Laughter] He won for Congress in an area that was unwinnable. He couldn't have—they were all saying: "Why is he wasting his time? That's Democrat territory." And I like Lee and knew Lee, and he ended up winning the seat in a massive upset. Nobody knew what happened, actually.

And then he was there for a long time. How many years were you there?

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee M. Zeldin. Eight.

The President. Eight. Eight years. Did—was very popular. And then he almost ran—he almost won the Governorship of New York, which is very—lost by a few points, which was an amazing run. And I said, "We've got to get you in with us in some form," and we did. And he's head of the Environmental Agency, EPA, and doing a great job.

And I said, "If we have a nuclear power plant, Lee, can you get it approved in less than a month?" Huh?

Administrator Zeldin. One week.

The President. [Laughter] He said one—he said, "I'll do it faster." And by the way, he'll do a fast job, but he's going to do also a great job. It's going to be an important job. We don't even smile about it.

But you know, I've been involved in the approval process for a long time, having been in real estate, and you go years and years and years for absolutely nothing. And even in those days, I used to say, you know, this whole thing could have been approved in a week or 2 weeks or 3 weeks, and it would have been just as good. But they'd take you down the path, and you'd spend years waiting, and then sometimes you get rejected.

I wasn't rejected too much. I was the king of zoning. I got—I did well, but it was such nonsense. It was so terrible. The process was so terrible.

But this is the big leagues now, and he's the head person in the whole country. And I appreciate it, and I appreciate you doing it. And already, they're respecting you very greatly. So thank you very much, Lee. Great job.

So we have a lot of Senators and Congress men and women, and I'm going to just introduce the ones that I see here, because it—you know, it's always a problem when I do this, because I leave one or two out, and that's the end. I never get their vote again. [Laughter] I never get their vote. It takes years—it takes years to recover.

But we'll give it a shot because—Senator John Barrasso, who is my friend and a great gentleman. Thank you very much, John, for being here. Thank you, John.

Cynthia Lummis. Fantastic woman, who believes like I do in—she believes like I do in these people, right? She believes in them maybe even more than I do. That's pretty good. From day one. Thank you, Cynthia. You're doing a fantastic job.

Kevin Cramer, my friend—where is Kevin?—because Kevin—I think he was here, because he was—he had a problem, and I just—well, pay my respects. He wanted to be here so badly, but he had a difficult problem that he's working through, and we all love Kevin.

John Hoeven. John, thank you very much. Thank you very much. [Applause] Great.

Steve Daines. Thank you, Steve. Steve is a picker of great candidates, like he picked a guy named Tim Sheehy, who's here. Where is Tim? Where is Tim? Thank you, Tim. And Tim Sheehy has turned out to be a wonderful Senator, and that was your pick, and we went with it, and you were right. And we have a great one in Tim. So thank you, Tim, and thank you, Steve.

Shelley Moore Capito. Shelley, thank you very much. West Virginia—from West Virginia. She has to like—you have no choice. Even if you didn't like it, you have to like coal, right? [Laughter] But they were doing a number on you. They were doing a number on you with the coal stuff, and you have—not only coal, but you have among the best coal anywhere in the world. So thank you very much.

A friend of mine for a long time—I'm the one that got him to change his religion, in a sense. He changed the party. He went from a Democrat—I said, "Jim, you're not a Democrat." [Laughter] But he changed to Republican, and he's one of the most popular Republicans and one of the most popular political leaders in the country. Jim Justice. I call him "Big Jim." Big Jim Justice. You look good, Jim.

And he was in the business, and so you—am I doing the right thing? You would know better than anybody in this room. Am I doing the right thing, Jim?

Senator James C. Justice II. You're doing the right thing.

The President. I think so, right?

Sen. Justice. All over the place.

The President. Thank you very much, Jim.

Cindy Hyde-Smith. Cindy, thank you, hon. Very good. Good job. People are going to be happy.

And all friends of mine—Mike Lee. Mike, thank you very much.

We have a lot of people from Congress—Congress men and women, Representatives. Morgan Griffith. Morgan, thank you. Thank you very much. Bruce Westerman. Bruce—thank you, Bruce. Bob Latta. Bob Latta. Thank you, Bob. Good job.

Troy Balderson. Troy. Haven't seen you in a long time, since those early—that early race. I endorsed him before anyone knew who he was, and he ended up winning. That was another, surprise, right?

Representative W. Troy Balderson. Yes, sir. Thank you.

The President. You've been—and that was a long time ago.

Rep. Balderson. Many years ago, sir. Thank you.

The President. Yes. You're doing a great job. Thank you very much, Troy.

Carol Miller. Carol—thank you, Carol. West Virginia. Riley Moore. Riley. Hi, Riley. Thanks. Mike Bost. Mike, thank you very much. Troy Downing. Troy, thank you.

Oh, he has something. What is it, coal? Is there coal in that bag? Huh? [Laughter]

Representative Troy Downing. Even better, it's clean coal.

The President. I'll take—I like it. I'll take it right now. Thank you very much.

Hal Rogers. Hal. Hal, thank you. Thank you, Hal. Andy Barr. Thank you, Andy. Good luck with everything. I hear good things. Troy Downing. Troy, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Troy. Hal Rogers—oops.

Harriet Hageman. Harriet, hi. How are you, Harriet? We just left—Harriet—this is one of the finest attorneys you will ever see. I have seen her in action, and she is brutal. [Laughter] I never want her against me, that I can tell you.

Dan Meuser. Dan—[applause]. Thank you, Dan. Thanks, Dan. Good job you're doing. Wesley Hunt, my friend too. Wesley, great. I love your commercial.

Pete Stauber. Pete—[applause]. Thank you, Pete. Great hockey player he was, right? Great hockey player. And a great gentleman just broke the record of Wayne Gretzky. The great one is Wayne Gretzky, but we have another great one too, huh? Just broke the record. It was great.

Governor Greg Gianforte. Greg, nice seeing you. Good, Greg. Thank you very much, Greg. Bill Lee. Bill, thank you very much. Patrick Morrisey, West Virginia. Just got elected. Mark Gordon. Mark, thank you. Thank you very much.

And we have a lot of others, and I'm in trouble, because I can't—I don't know. I got five or six others that I see quickly, but I'm just not going to do it. Don't hold it against me, because we have to get back to the most important people in the room: these people. You know that, right?

So the energy workers and the coal miners and in the area that I'm standing on—and that's a lot of weight on this platform, so I don't know what's going to happen. I hope it's structurally designed for you guys. [Laughter] I don't know.

But we have just really well-deserving, great American patriots. And it's such an honor to be here and doing—making such a big move, such a bold move in energy, because, you know, for years, people would just bemoan this industry and—decimate the industry for absolutely no reason. Because with modern technology and all of the other things that we do, it's one of the great, great forms of energy. That's why other countries, leading countries, are using it—some exclusively.

For 4 long years, Joe Biden and congressional Democrats tried to abolish the American coal industry. They did everything in their power while he was awake, which wasn't much—[laughter]—shutting down dozens of coal plants, banning coal leases on Federal lands, and putting thousands and thousands of coal miners out of work—destroying their lives, actually. Destroying their lives.

I'll never forget when I went to West Virginia, which I won by 48 points, I think. Right, Big Jim? I won by 48 points. But, in the first campaign, where Hillary Clinton was about four States too early, and she was talking about how bad coal was and how they were going to teach coal miners how to make widgets and gadgets and technology, which they didn't want to do. They want to mine.

One thing I learned about the coal miners, that's what they want to do. You could give them a penthouse on Fifth Avenue and a different kind of a job, and they'd be unhappy. They want to mine coal. That's what they love to do. And she was going to put them in a high-tech industry, where you make little cell phones and things. [Laughter] I don't know, do you think he'd be good at that? [Laughter] I don't know.

Core Natural Resources Assistant Mine Foreman Anthony Sable. I wouldn't be.

The President. You wouldn't. You don't want to be.

And she was brutal about 3 weeks before, but then she had a problem. She went to West Virginia looking for votes, and that was a bad—that was bad situation. You remember that. And there was a coal miner around the table with his family, and he was in tears because of what they had done to him and his family. And I hope he's still around, but that man made quite an impression on the world and the public, and we ended up winning in a great election. But we ended up winning by a lot.

The Democrats' "green new scam" killed jobs and sent prices soaring here in America. But meanwhile, China opened two coal plants every single week. And other countries, likewise, went very strongly back into coal, and some of them never got off. Those are the ones that didn't have the problems.

The Biden energy policy was to put America last. "We want to be last. We've got to be last." Not a good policy. Under my administration, we're putting America first. It's very simple. America is always going to be first.

On my first day in office, I terminated the "green new scam," I declared the national energy emergency, and withdrew from the unfair, one-sided, and extremely costly to the United States only Paris climate accord.

You know, under the Paris climate accord, we had a terrible situation. We were—we would have paid over a trillion dollars. Think of it: over a trillion dollars. And Russia was paying almost nothing. Russia had a 1992 standard. China was paying nothing. China didn't kick in until 2035. This was 5 years ago, so they didn't kick in for many years. India had no standard whatsoever. But we had the highest standard you could imagine, and we had to start paying from day one. And we had to pay lots of money. We paid for everything.

So I was not a big fan of the Paris accord, and I let it be known, and I got out of it early. Then they went back into it. And now we get back out of it. [Laughter] And hopefully, we can be there for a long time—okay?—a long time, because it was a scam to take money away from the United States and hurt—and actually hurt us very badly with coal and with other things.

Now, under the Executive order that I will sign in a few moments, we're slashing unnecessary regulations that targeted the beautiful clean coal. We will rapidly expedite leases for coal mining on Federal lands—and these two gentlemen are going to do a real job of it—you've already started—and we'll streamline permitting. We will end the Government bias against coal, and we're going to unlock the sweeping authorities of Defense Production Act—the Defense Production Act to turbocharge coal mining in America.

They made it impossible to—impossible. You actually—I know a friend of mine has a plant. He said: "You know, it's a shame. I'm ripping it down, and I'm replacing it with another form of energy." I won't tell you, because it's also very good, but it's not as powerful as this. He said, "You know, the plant I'm building, the new plant is literally half as good." It's no less—you know, it's not probably even as good environmentally. But he said it would produce half the power for more money—much more money. "It'll never compete with that beautiful plant I have down the road," which was really a modernized coal plant.

Well, he'll be happy to know that he can open that plant up very quickly, and it's going to produce a lot. But he was complaining. He said, "This is so much better."

He wasn't doing that as politicking me. He was doing that because that's what he felt. And he knew every form of energy. We talked about that. He knew every form of energy.

But our Government is going to do something that's very different, and I don't think even you two know about this. This was my idea from about 15 minutes before I got up here. [Laughter]

We're going to guarantee that we have a strong business for many years to come; that your coal companies and your miners don't get all excited about their jobs; and then, should a radical-left liberal become President, they end the business right away and somebody has built a plant and spent hundreds of millions of dollars in building a plant, and the plant is going to be closed because a Democrat got in or a liberal got in. They're opposed to coal, and Republicans are very much for it—clean coal. And we're going to give a guarantee that the business will not be terminated by the ups and downs of the world of politics.

So should somebody come into this very important office and say, "Oh, well, you spent hundreds of millions of dollars, and you guys have given up your life because you want to be in coal," and then all of a sudden you don't have a life anymore, because it's what you know the best—that's not going to happen. We're going to give a guarantee that it's not going to happen, so that if somebody comes in, they cannot change it at a whim. They cannot just—going to go—they're going to have to go through hell to close you up. All right?

So that's pretty good. We're going to give that in the form of a guarantee that we're writing on right now, structurally, and from a legal standpoint. So your investments are going to also be protected.

And you're going to have no reason to be concerned about your future, your life, or your investment if you're a miner, as this great Governor was a miner, actually. He was a—he was one of the larger coal miners. He could fit up here very easily, you know? [Laughter] Big Jim. But he was a great success. But they were very, very tough on him, and he did a beautiful job with a beautiful product.

Already, under our leadership, the Department of Interior has approved the expansion of the Spring Creek Mine in Montana, supporting 280 coal mining jobs and unlocking over 40 million tons of coal, and there's more to come. Spring Creek. It's a big one.

And there's more to come in the States of Wyoming, Alabama, Utah, North Dakota, and many others. West Virginia—I can't believe they didn't put West Virginia down. It's lucky I mentioned that, right? Can you imagine if I didn't mention West Virginia? I would have been in big trouble. They didn't mark it down here. [Laughter]

It's good to have a President like that, that can pick that up, right? You think Joe Biden would have picked that up? I don't think so. [Laughter] "Gee, they didn't mention West Virginia." I don't think so. I don't think he'd be standing up here either. [Laughter]

The value of untapped coal in our country is 100 times greater than the value all the gold in Fort Knox, and we're going to unleash it and make America rich and powerful again. Under this order, I'm also directing Secretary Wright to use billions of dollars in Federal funding to invest in the next generation of coal technology, which is an amazing technology in terms of getting the full potential of coal and also doing it in a very clean, environmental way.

Pound for pound, coal is the single most reliable, durable, secure, and powerful form of energy there is on Earth today. It's a big statement. You never hear those statements, you know? You've never heard that before from a politician, have you? Well, maybe from that politician, but not—from not too many. [Laughter] But that's the way it is.

I'll say it again. Pound for pound, coal is the single most reliable, durable, secure, and powerful form of energy. It's cheap, incredibly efficient, high density, and it's almost indestructible. You could drop a bomb on it, and it's going to be there for you to use the next day—[laughter]—which you can't say with any other form of energy. You—virtually indestructible.

Most importantly, we have more of it here in America than anywhere else on Earth. We have more coal than any other country. You go to Australia; they have fantastic amounts of coal. You know who they sell it to? China. They sell it to China. They're nearby. They sell a lot of it to China. But we have more than anywhere else on Earth.

We also have more liquid gold than anywhere on Earth, so we're really an energy behemoth, but we're unleashing that also. That's going to be another part. But I didn't even want to mention that. It's not down here, because I didn't want to mention. Today is about clean, beautiful coal.

So I'm going to give this to you. This big guy. Should I give it to him?

Mr. Sable. Yes.

The President. Huh? You take that.

Mr. Sable. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Okay.

For example, we believe it's possible to extract enormous amounts of critical minerals and rare earths, which you know we need for technology and high technology, in the process of coal mining, making America the mineral superpower of the world, actually.

In addition, I'm instructing the Department of Justice to identify and fight every single unconstitutional State or local regulation that's putting our coal miners out of business. And we are withdrawing all of those objections from our Government today. It's all being withdrawn. So all of you people that have been fighting for your lives, we are withdrawing all of that today. We have excellent lawyers—excellent.

Have you noticed that lots of law firms have been signing up with Trump? [Laughter] A hundred million dollars, another hundred million dollars for damages that they've done. But they give you a hundred million, and then they announce that, "But we have done nothing wrong." And I agree they've done nothing wrong. But what the hell? They give me a lot of money, considering they've done nothing wrong. [Laughter]

And we'll use some of those people, some of those great firms. They are great firms too. They just had a bad moment. [Laughter]

But we're going to use some of those firms to work with you on your leasing and your other things. And they'll do a great job. I think they're going to do a fantastic job.

And for those of you that want to know, the tariffs—you've been hearing about tariffs. We're taking in almost $2 billion a day in tariffs. Two billion a day. And we're doing very well—and we're doing very well in making—I call them tailored deals. Not off the rack. These are tailored—highly tailored deals.

Right now Japan is flying here to make a deal. South Korea is flying here to make a deal. And others are flying here. I mean, our—my only problem is, I'm not sure I have enough. We're going to have to use those great law firms, I think, to help us with that.

But we're going to probably do that, actually. We're going to use them, and we're getting them for the right price, because we have to—we need a lot of talent. We have a lot of countries coming in; they want to make deals. If I told them about making those deals 2 years ago or 3 years ago or 5 years ago, they'd be laughing at us. Now they're all signing up. Mike, you know that.

So it's going to be a great thing, but we're taking—think of that—$2 billion a day. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money, even in the coal businesses, isn't it? Huh? It's a lot of money.

And America is going to be very rich again very soon. You're going to see that happening. You see it all—along, and it's—so, that whole situation that—you know, that was—it was somewhat explosive, but if we didn't do that, we wouldn't be talking the way we're talking right now. It's been amazing what's happened.

Sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit, but we've had great consideration. We've had talks with many, many countries, over 70. They all want to come in. Our problem is, can't see that many that fast. But we don't have to, because, as you know, the tariffs are on and the money is pouring in at a level that we've never seen before, and it's going to be great for us. It's going to be great for other countries.

We've been ripped off and abused by countries for many years with the tariff situation. They've used tariffs against us. We didn't use tariffs against them or in any way. I mean, we just didn't use them with any monumental proportion.

And so we are doing it now. We have tariffs on cars. We have tariffs on lumber, tariffs on steel and aluminum. Steel plants are going up because of it all over the country. We have 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum.

And the steel—I think the steelworkers like me even more than the coal miners like me. I'm pretty sure that that's true.

We have—instead of having no steel business, I put them on—originally, in my first term, we would have had—we wouldn't have had one steel mill in the United States if I didn't do that. And now we upped it, and we—not only are we taking in a lot of money, but we're protecting our workers—our steelworkers. We're protecting our steel industry.

And one thing you know, that steel and things like steel you need, because you need it from a—defense standpoint. You need steel for your tanks and your planes and your everything. And certain industries, you can get away with not having, but others you need, and steel is one you need.

So I want to let you know that's in full force and effect. And literally, as we speak—I spoke to executives in the steel industry over the last few days, and they're all coming in to build plants in the United States of America, because if you build them in the United States, you have no tariffs to pay. There are no tariffs to pay. Zero.

If you build them outside, using outside labor and hurting our businesses, and you send your product in, you have to pay a price for that, and they will be having—they will be having tariffs, as you know. It's an amazing thing.

This has been something used against us for many years by other countries—China, in particular, but others—not just China, others—and taken advantage of us, ripped us off, and left us for dead, frankly. And I believe if I didn't become your President, I believe that this country would have had problems like they've never had before because it was—it was serious damage in so many other ways—not only the border, where people came rushing into our country from prisons and jails and mental institutions, murderers, drug dealers, and some vicious, vicious criminals.

Eleven thousand eighty-eight murderers came into our country. We have to get them out. We're getting them out. Eleven thousand eighty-eight. Of that number, half committed murder on more than two people—more than two people. And this is what they allowed into our country with their open border policy of lunacy.

And we're taking care of that, just like we're taking care of you today. We're taking care of that. I want to thank Kristi Noem and Tom Homan for doing an unbelievable job. The whole thing is what—the job their doing is incredible. It's really an unforced error—it should have never happened—that we have to be spending such time and resources—Mr. Senator, right?—on getting people out of our country that shouldn't be here.

I mean, literally from mental institutions. Insane asylums were opened up and emptied into our country. Prisons from all over the world. Not just South America, prisons from—think of this—from Africa, the Congo—a lot of people from the Congo—prisons in the Congo, prisons from Asia, from all over were opened up.

And I knew that when I heard it was an open-border policy. I said, "If you do that, every country is going to be dumping people that they don't want into our country." And that's what's happened, but we're cleaning it out.

And the courts—we had a good decision, as you know, from the Supreme Court, allowing us to do that. We have judges that didn't want us to do it. We have judges that wanted the very evil gang members from Tren de Aragua and MS-13—they didn't want them taken out of the country and put in very powerful prisons. When you look—you've seen—you've all seen those clips. Pretty amazing clips.

But I want to thank El Salvador. They've done an incredible job.

But we've been, fortunately, winning those cases. But we have judges that are out of control that say: "Oh, bring them back. Bring them back." We don't want them back. We don't want them back. Can you imagine? You spend all of that time, energy, and money on getting them out, and then you have a judge that sits there—a local judge who sits there—Federal judges—sits there and says that, "No, no, bring them back."

One was brought back—or they want to bring them back because he wasn't a member of Tren de Aragua; he was a member of MS-13, which is just as bad. So they misidentified him, but it sounds to me like he was a member of MS-13. So, they want him brought back because he wasn't treated properly.

It's—we got to be smart. Our country has got to get a lot smarter than it is. But we have to give the people that are empowered to do this kind of work—and it's not pleasant work—we have to give them—we have to give them the option of making our country great again, and that's what they're doing. And I have great respect for those people.

And they're doing it out of love. They could get a much easier job. They're doing it out of love for our country. It's so important. Just like I'm doing this with coal today, for love for our country.

Earlier this afternoon I signed another Executive order to strengthen our electric grid by ensuring that coal-fired power plants are always available to meet surging demand for electricity. Unlike wind and solar, coal plants can run 24 hours a day in rain, sleet, or snow. And you will not be subject to the incredible blackout situation that's taking place in California, where they have blackouts all the time.

It's an amazing thing with California. They have blackouts and brownouts at levels that nobody has ever seen before, and all they want to do is keep going the way they're going, and they're doing a very poor job.

As you probably heard, I released billions of gallons of water going in from upstate California, from the most northern parts of California. It probably comes in from Canada, to a certain extent. Thank you very much, Canada. We appreciate it. [Laughter] And I released it. It was being sent out to the Pacific Ocean.

I've been working on Gavin and some of the politicians for years, and they didn't want to do that because they were protecting a smelt—a fish that was perhaps in trouble, but it's not unique to that area. And because of that, you had numbers—you had fires. Nobody has ever seen anything like what happened.

Think of what it would have been like if you had fire hydrants that had water in them, if you had sprinkler systems in houses. A lot of these luxury houses, where they had beautiful sprinkler systems, there was no water. They had no water to put out the fires.

Water is very good for putting out fires. You know, they just didn't learn it. [Laughter]

But we now have millions of gallons—billions, actually, they say, of gallons of water pouring into California from the Pacific Northwest, I guess they would say—mostly Pacific Northwest, but other parts of—of the northern sections of California and beyond.

And it's a beautiful thing to see. I saw a picture of it this morning. The water is just flowing down there.

I said, "Why didn't they do this?" I told them to do it. In my first term, I said, "Do it." And I don't know, I think the second term is just more powerful. They do it. When I say, "Do it," they do it, right?

And we actually had to do some pretty strong things to get them to open it up.

They had—think of this: They had all that water pouring out right into the Pacific. They had a big valve—like a giant valve as big as this room. And they turn the valve—it takes 1 day to turn it—and they face it toward the Pacific Ocean. And the water, all that was coming down—all millions and millions of gallons coming down—they put it into the Pacific Ocean, which, for the Pacific Ocean, is like a drop of water. But, for California, it would have been unbelievable.

So we did it. And I'm very proud of the fact that we did it. We did that against a lot of—a lot of heat and a lot of environmental nonsense.

From now on, we'll ensure that our Nation's critically needed coal plants, as an example, remain online and fully operational. They're always going to be operational.

And, again, we're going to have guarantees that Government cannot close them down, close you down, and destroy your lives.

To that end, I'm also instructing Secretary Wright to save the Cholla coal plant in Arizona, a big plant which has been slated for destruction. We're going to keep those coal miners on the job, going to tell them to just remain calm, because we're going to have that plant opening and burning the clean coal—beautiful clean coal—in a very short period of time. You know all about that, right? That's a big one.

As part of our historic deregulatory efforts, this afternoon I'm also granting immediate relief to 47 companies operating 66 coal plants—very big ones, all over the country—recusing and making them available for coal production almost in the immediate future.

But we're going to be crushing Biden-era environmental restrictions. These are restrictions that made it impossible—impossible to do anything having to do, frankly, with energy, even beyond coal. It's really beyond even coal.

We have clean air, we have clean water, and now we have clean coal. And at the same time, we're going to—we're going to do other things and—with other forms of technology and also energy like our country has never really seen before and never been known to do before because of all sorts of restrictions having to do with the "green new scam," which, by the way, was devised by somebody that never even studied. You know that? They never even studied anything to do with the environment.

It was a young Congresswoman. She came up with the idea. And based on that, I guess we only have—well, actually, we should have all been gone, because they gave us only a few years left on Earth, right? [Laughter] Right, Greg? We were going to be gone. We were all going to be gone, the environment.

No, what they have to worry about is the nuclear—nuclear heat. They don't have to worry about environmental heat. They have to worry about nuclear heat. And if we're smart, we're working on that right now with others, having to do with Iran and some other countries. But that's the—that's the heat you're going to have to worry about. You don't have to worry about the air is getting warmer; the ocean will rise one-quarter of an inch within the next 500 to 600 years, giving you a little bit more waterfront property. [Laughter] They say this is going to—these guys can handle that. The nuclear we have a bigger problem with, right? So, we're going to make sure that that's safe. We're going to make sure that that's safe.

With us today are some of the amazing workers who will benefit from these policies—the policies that we're doing and so proud of doing—including Jeff Crowe, a miner from West Virginia. Jeff, would you come up and say a few words? Jeff. Come on up here, Jeff.

American Consolidated Natural Resources, Inc., General Superintendent Jeff Crowe. Thank you. Good afternoon.

Mr. President, I want to first thank you for having me and my fellow miners here. It is an honor and a privilege to be a part of today's events.

I believe this past November that America clearly spoke about what we wanted for our country. It is reassuring for Americans to have a President in office who will truly put the United States of America above all else. Thank you.

[At this point, Mr. Crowe continued his remarks.]

Prior administrations have done all they could to eliminate the coal industry.

[Mr. Crowe referred to his prepared remarks.]

Sorry, one second. I'm getting there. [Laughter]

In my opinion, they have done so with an unethical and uneducated approach. But we are still strong, we are still here, and we are still needed in order to make America great again.

The President. Good.

Mr. Crowe. Having a President and an administration that understands the need and importance of coal is more than appreciated. It gives the industry a form of reassurance to know that we have a President in place that supports us.

[Mr. Crowe continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

I personally thank you for what you do for our country and for our industry. It has been my pleasure to be here today to help you usher in the golden age of America.

The President. That's great. Thank you very much.

Mr. Crowe. Thank you.

The President. Great job.

Mr. Crowe. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

The President. Thank you.

He did a good job. Let me have that speech. I want to have that. [Laughter]

Mr. Crowe. Yes, sir.

The President. No, he had a couple of good lines in there. I want to keep them. [Laughter] No, actually, what I want to do: I'm going to sign it for you, because I think—I mean, he worked hard. Look at the—and look how good his eyes must be to read that. [Laughter]

Mr. Crowe. I lost it once. [Laughter]

The President. We're going to do that. And hopefully you can sell it tonight for a lot of money. [Laughter]

Mr. Crowe. No, sir. I'll keep that one.

[The President signed Mr. Crowe's prepared remarks.]

The President. That's great. Thank you very much. Here.

[The President gave Mr. Crowe the signed remarks and the signing pen.]

Thank you very much, Jeff.

And also with us is Tony Campbell of the East Kentucky Power Cooperative. And Tony is quite a—quite a gentleman and very respected in the industry. Come on up, Tony. Thank you.

East Kentucky Power Cooperative President and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Campbell. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, on behalf of East Kentucky Power Cooperative, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and electric cooperatives across this America, thank you for your leadership to restore American energy dominance.

[Mr. Campbell continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

Mr. President, thank you again for your actions today and for your support for the electric cooperatives as we work to keep the lights on in America.

The President. Thank you. Great job.

Mr. Campbell. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. [Inaudible]

Mr. Campbell. Thank you.

The President. Great. Thank you, Tony. Thank you very much, Tony. Appreciate it.

Every day under the Trump administration, we will continue to lower costs for American families, create jobs for American workers, and, very importantly, unlock unlimited amounts of affordable American energy, including, as I said—and I'll say for the last time—beautiful clean coal.

Our country is blessed—our country is blessed with the most abundant natural resources on Earth, as nobody has what we have, and we're going to use it too. We're going to use it in a very responsible way.

Together, we're going to tap that magnificent potential to give our people the glorious future that they deserve, better than they've ever had in the past. I mean, they had a good future a little—if you look 20 years ago, they thought they had a good future, and it was ripped away from them, torn away from them with nonsense. And we're not going to let that happen. This is going to be a glorious future for them.

And I want to thank everybody for being here. And I want to thank you and you and you and that whole group and our Senators, by the way, and our great Congress men and women for being here in such a large number, because you've been helping us make these decisions. These are big decisions, and this is a really big one. And this is one that's going to be—I think we're going to look back and—with great pride at what we've done today, not just in putting people to work but at really reawakening our country.

And thank you very much. And thank you all for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Come on up.

White House Staff Secretary William O. Scharf. Mr. President——

The President. Yes. This first one.

Staff Secretary Scharf. ——we have four items prepared for your signature this afternoon, sir.

The first of these Executive orders is—it may be one of the most significant Executive orders of your administration thus far. This directs all departments and agencies of the Federal Government to end all discriminatory policies against the coal industry. This ends the leasing moratorium that prevents new coal projects on Federal land. And it's going to accelerate all permitting and funding for new coal projects to allow the coal industry to flourish under your leadership, sir.

The President. That's great. Thank you.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Reinvigorating America's Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241."]

Okay.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Sir, there are currently dozens of coal plants in America that are in imminent danger of being forced to close based on unscientific and unrealistic policies enacted by the Biden administration. What we're going to do is essentially impose a moratorium on those policies taking effect to protect coal plants that are currently operating to ensure that they're able to continue producing power and continue providing jobs to Americans in the coal industry.

The President. Great. Thank you very much.

[The President signed a proclamation titled, "Regulatory Relief for Certain Stationary Sources To Promote American Energy."]

Okay.

Staff Secretary Scharf. Sir, you've made grid reliability and security a key focus of this administration. This Executive order is going to promote grid security and reliability by ensuring, in part, that our grid policies are focused on secure and effective energy production and —energy transmission, as opposed to woke policies that discriminate against secure sources of power, like coal and other fossil fuels.

The President. Great.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Strengthening the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid."]

Okay. Here you go.

Staff Secretary Scharf. And lastly, sir, one of the biggest problems we have in this space is Democrat States, radical-leftist States, enacting policies and enacting an agenda that discriminates against coal, against secure sources of energy. Many of these policies are unconstitutional and illegal, and with this Executive order, you're going to be instructing your Department of Justice to vigorously pursue and investigate these State policies that we believe are illegal or unconstitutional.

The President. Good. Thank you very much.

[The President signed an Executive order titled, "Protecting American Energy From State Overreach."]

That's great.

Audience member. The Congressman from Illinois thanks you. [Laughter]

The President. Thank you very much. Great job.

He went to Harvard when Harvard was good. [Laughter]

Staff Secretary Scharf. It wasn't. [Laughter]

The President. It was a while ago.

Let's hand these out to the guys.

[The President handed out signing pens.]

Q. Mr. President, what do you tell Republicans who are worried about tariffs, sir?