Hoeven: President Signs Executive Orders to Strengthen Access to Affordable, Reliable Baseload Electricity

Hoeven: President Signs Executive Orders to Strengthen Access to Affordable, Reliable Baseload Electricity

Senator at White House for EO Signing, Working to Secure Future of Coal in Support of U.S. Energy Dominance

***Click for video and audio.***

WASHINGTON - Senator John Hoeven today joined President Donald Trump at the White House as he signed executive orders to strengthen access to the affordable and reliable baseload electricity provided by coal. The orders align with Hoeven's longtime work to secure the future of the U.S. coal industry, ensuring the nation can continue to utilize this abundant energy resource in support of making the country energy dominant. Specifically, President Trump signed orders that:

• Direct the Department of the Interior to identify coal reserves on federal lands and prioritize federal coal leasing.
  • Hoeven is working to rescind Biden administration policies that would lock away taxpayer-owned coal resources, including the Public Lands Rule and the Resource Management Plan for North Dakota.
• Provide regulatory relief for coal mining and coal-fired power plants, including exempting certain coal plants from the onerous Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule imposed by the Biden administration.
  • Hoeven, along with then-Congressman Kelly Armstrong, led bicameral legislation to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing its new MATS rule.
• Support the development of technologies like carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and encourage coal technology exports to support U.S. global energy leadership.
• Utilize emergency authority under the Federal Power Act to address the premature retirement of coal-fired power plants and enable these facilities to continue supporting the reliability of the grid.

"Today's executive orders help mobilize President Trump's team in support of our nation's coal producers, who provide affordable and reliable baseload power that is essential to the stability of our electric grid," said Hoeven, a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "Leveraging our vast coal reserves, including those on federal lands, is a key part of our efforts to make the U.S. truly energy dominant. North Dakota has long led the way on priorities like CCUS, and I look forward to continuing my efforts with the administration, including Interior Secretary Burgum and Energy Secretary Wright, to provide the regulatory relief and legal certainty needed to unlock our country's energy potential."

Leading in CCUS

Hoeven has worked for more than 15 years to advance North Dakota's leadership in cracking the code on CCUS technologies to enable the next generation of clean, coal-fired electric power, including:

• Putting in place the legal, tax and regulatory requirements to advance CCUS.
• Making North Dakota the first state to be granted regulatory primacy for Class VI wells, to ensure CO2 is safely and securely stored below the surface.
• Advancing Basin's Dakota Gasification synfuels plant, the largest coal-based carbon capture project in the world, which is currently in operation and captures up to 2.25 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

-###-