DOE Won’t Increase Regulation on Gas to Boost Coal, Perry Says
The Trump administration wants to revitalize the coal industry, but they will not do so by imposing regulation on the natural gas industry, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry told reporters July 18 at a joint press conference with International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol.
“Would the Department of Energy (DOE) be a participant in putting regulations into place to protect a particular energy sector?,” Perry said. “The answer is no.”
Though he firmly stated that DOE will not increase regulation on energy sources that compete with coal, he was unclear about how the administration intends to make coal competitive again.
He seemed to suggest that exports, either of coal or technology, would play a large role in a revitalized coal industry. Noting that coal still accounts for roughly 40% of worldwide energy generation, Perry stated: “It’s not like coal has been pushed out of the marketplace, I mean you are going to see coal used in the world. Our goal is for us to use the cleanest technology that we can and generally speaking, that technology is going to come from the U.S.”…