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Trump Participates in the Champion of Coal Event, Feb. 11, 2026

February 11, 2026 · The White House · 0:27:55

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump hosted the Champion of Coal event at the White House on February 11, 2026 — Thomas Edison’s birthday, as he noted — welcoming “the men and women who light our cities” and repeating his signature line: “Clean, beautiful coal. We love clean, beautiful coal, don’t we, Doug?”

A miner’s wife from the Bear Run mine spoke for the families in the room: the administration’s policies to keep coal plants running meant “my husband and I can keep working, stay where we are and continue raising our son in our community that we call home,” and, as she put it, the President had “single handedly kept utility prices affordable, the lights on and our jobs alive.” The President then announced the day’s action: “I will sign an executive order that directs the Department of War to work directly with coal plants on the new power purchasing agreements, ensuring that we have more reliable power and stronger and more resilient grid power… we’re going to be buying a lot of coal through the military now.”

Industry speakers credited the coal plants kept open under his direction with stabilizing the grid during the recent winter storm and argued the United States holds more energy in its coal than any nation holds in any single source. The event closed with executives and miners presenting the President a trophy inscribed, as read out on stage, “the undisputed champion of beautiful, clean coal.”

Why it matters

The event pairs the administration’s coal constituency with a procurement lever — military power-purchasing agreements with coal plants — announced the day before the endangerment-finding termination completed the deregulation week. It is recorded on the Energy & Permitting hub.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: the executive order directing Department of War coal power-purchasing agreements, as announced by the President at the event. The scoreboard entry itself remains review-gated.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in the Champion of Coal Event,” The White House, February 11, 2026 (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President and the speakers at the event.