THREAD: DO YOU HAVE $1 BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF RELIEF? The world's largest coal company came to the Trump administration with an extraordinary request. Help us save coal or at least ONE big Arizona coal-burning power plant, Navajo Generating Station. 
The request was for the EPA to formally endorse a move that would allow the coal-burning plant to avoid an air pollution upgrade that would cost as much as $1 billion. Peabody's lobbyists submitted this as part of a wish list of Trump-era actions.
Peabody and its lobbyists held a series of meetings with Interior Department officials in early days of Trump admin, as they laid out their plan to get US government help to save the Arizona power plant that burned Peabody coal.
Here was their idea. An Obama-era rule had been adopted to try to reduce HAZE and other toxic air pollution in the Grand Canyon and other national parks. Peabody wanted that rule killed, or some way to get around it. Trump would love it, they figured, as it would roll back a rule
Scott Pruitt, then the head of the EPA, was happy to deliver on the request, writing this letter to formally endorse the use of a loophole that had been included in the Obama air-pollution rule
The Trump Interior Department came to the rescue as well. It tried to FORCE an Arizona government agency to power coal-fueled power from the plant.
SO WHAT HAPPENED? The entire plan failed. The grand strategy conceived by coal lobbyists and endorsed by Trump's Interior & EPA collapsed. And the coal-burning power plant closed. I went to that plant and coal mine earlier this year. It felt like I was on an abandoned space ship.
The power plant workers just walked out one day--the last shift. And the plant closed. They even left their hard hats and in some cases, cans of food for lunch. (That is me at the plant, pre COVID)
What was one of biggest factors in failure to save this coal-burning power plant-which Interior owned 24 percent of, and was LARGEST coal-burning plant in the West? It was on Navajo land and the tribe after yrs fighting to save the plant decided to embrace clean energy future.
During my visit to Arizona, I saw evidence of this move first hand. There in the same town where coal mine once operated around the clock, and hundreds of coal miners had now lost their jobs, despite Trump's promise, was a new solar installation. Built and owned by the Navajos.
I met a lot of coal miners during this trip & a second trip to Kentucky, where the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority closed another coal-burning plant that once had largest coal-burning units in the world. Lot of very frustrated out-of-work coal miners. Trump's promise?
So now you have at least part of the backstory. Thanks to NYT subscribers for supporting this work. Please read and share this story. nytimes.com/2020/10/05/us/…
Here is an online only sidebar that runs through some of these documents. Please read and share this too. Reading these stories helps support this work. nytimes.com/2020/10/05/us/…
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