Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Newsmax on Monday that the department’s move to open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal leasing is a direct byproduct of President Donald Trump’s vow to “unleash American energy.”
“This is fulfilling President Trump’s very smart, very common-sense campaign promise to unleash American energy,” Burgum told “Carl Higbie FRONTLINE.” “President Trump knows that we need more power in our country. He understands there is no energy transition. This is energy addition.”
The Interior Department announced earlier in the day that the land will be available for new coal leases, marking one of the largest single openings of federal land for energy production in decades. Burgum said the decision reflects Trump’s view that coal remains a vital baseload power source for the U.S. grid, even as the administration expands oil, gas, and other forms of energy.
“Coal provides 20% of the electricity in America, and we have close to 17 states where coal is more than 50% of that state’s electricity,” Burgum said. “You shut all that down at a time when China added 93 gigawatts of coal power last year — they understand you need electricity to win the AI arms race. A kilowatt of electricity can be converted into intelligence. If we don’t win the AI arms race, it affects every industry, every job, every company. It affects our national defense.”
Burgum echoed Trump’s longstanding argument that U.S. coal plants are among the cleanest in the world, the result of technologies such as scrubbers and low nitrogen oxide burners.
“If there’s a coal plant still running in America today, it’s one of the cleanest plants in the world,” he said.
He also stressed coal’s role beyond electricity. He noted that coal seams contain critical minerals such as gallium and germanium — materials used in semiconductors, smartphones, defense systems, and even hospital equipment. China currently dominates the global supply chain for those minerals.
“We need those for defense, for cellphones, for virtually everything we make,” Burgum said. “If we get back into mining in this country, it’s not just ‘drill, baby, drill,’ but ‘mine, baby, mine.’ When we’re mining coal, then we’ve got these critical minerals.
“We also need coal for coke, which is essential in steelmaking. President Trump has said we’re going to get back to making steel and building ships in this country — and you need coal to make that happen.” Coke, produced by heating coal without oxygen, is the nearly pure carbon fuel essential for turning iron ore into steel in blast furnaces.
The move is part of Trump’s broader “energy dominance” agenda, which prioritizes domestic production of oil, gas, coal, and minerals over reliance on foreign imports.
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