A CEO from one of the largest energy companies in the U.S. is lashing out at several President Donald Trump appointees for helping to kill a plan that would have propped up the coal industry.
Robert Murray, the long-time head of Ohio-based Murray Energy, blasted the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee (FERC) for rejecting a plan that would compensate plants that keep 90 days-worth of fuel onsite. He laid the bulk of the blame on a handful of Trump appointees.
“President Trump should review the prior appointments to FERC and remove those FERC Commissioners who fail to do their jobs, on behalf of all Americans,” Gary Broadbent, a spokesman at Murray Energy, told The Daily Caller News Foundation of Murray’s response to the agency’s move Monday.
If Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s coal and nuclear energy gambit is rejected, the whole industry as well as the Ohio residents who rely on it would suffer the consequences, Murray told the DCNF in an interview Friday before FERC’s decision. He offered a more pointed criticism at the time: “If FERC fails on this, then the Trump appointees should be removed.”
“If First Energy goes, so does Murray Energy. First Energy says they will go under without the FERC plan – the tax base will be gone in Ohio without those coal power plants. The entire economy will be destroyed,” Murray said of First Energy, a leading energy company that relies on Murray Energy for supplies.
FERC officials – four of five of whom are Trump appointees – rejected the proposal, despite prodding and pushing from Perry and others who claimed the deal would make the grid more resilient.
“[W]e are terminating the proceeding” to keep certain power plants running in September, they wrote in their decision. Perry’s plan focused on grid “resilience,” particularly during extreme cold events that put stress on the electric grid.
Murray’s pitch comes as coal continues its slow descent.
Roughly 13 gigawatts of coal electricity at more than a dozen plants across the country are set to retire this year, according to the U.S. federal U.S. Energy Information Administration — coal’s share of the electricity generation mix is projected to plummet below 30 percent in 2018, according to EIA’s short-term energy outlook.
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