Coal's Future Still Unclear, Despite Trump's Campaigns Promises

"ExxonMobil has just dropped a tweet in support of putting the Paris climate agreement into force," according to a post by Tina Casey. "Connect the dots, and that means the Trump Administration is poised to throw coal under the bus."

The tweet came from Suzanne McCarron, ExxonMobil's Vice President of Public and Government Affairs, and reads as follows while linking to the Paris Climate Agreement.

The Paris agreement is an important step forward by governments in addressing the serious risks of #ClimateChange https://t.co/X7JubyyArv

— Suzanne McCarron (@SuzanneMcCarron) November 10, 2016

Before the end of the article, Casey casts doubt on the seriousness of this pro-environmental statement from McCarron, noting the company's shift toward shale gas reserves.

A big component of the story, however, is coal's position as a political and economic power. "This is probably not what the US coal industry had in mind when it lobbied — successfully — to put a President Donald Trump in charge of US energy policy," writes Casey, and events since Election Day have hinted at a rude awakening for the coal industry (from executive levels down to the laid-off workers who voted for Trump hoping that he would revive the industry). A separate article by Joseph Garth reported that "U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hedged on Friday about when and if Republicans would be able to bring coal mining jobs to Kentucky, saying that is a 'private sector activity.'"