As he blazed across America last year, Donald Trump promised to end President Obama’s “outright war on coal that has uprooted and destroyed families and entire communities”. “We’re going to put our coalminers back to work,” he stormed. Last month, President Trump sought to live up to his word, signing an executive order designed to revive the industry by rejecting his predecessor’s efforts to cut carbon emissions and fight climate change. The order may have pleased the dispossessed of gritty mining towns such as Grundy, West Virginia — the “sickest town in America” — where unemployment and deaths from opioid abuse have spiralled. But President Trump’s efforts to resuscitate coal are unlikely to get far because environmental rules are not the industry’s biggest headache.

Source: The Times April 26, 2017 23:01 UTC