By JOHN RABY and LEAH WILLINGHAM, Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed several changes that would affect the struggling U.S. coal industry.

Trump issued executive orders this month to allow mining on federal land. He has used his emergency authority to allow some older coal-fired power plants set for retirement to keep producing electricity to meet the rising demand amid the growth in data centers, artificial intelligence and electric cars.

The Republican president also granted nearly 70 older coal-fired power plants a two-year exemption from federal requirements to reduce emissions of toxic chemicals.

Trump’s government efficiency team, run by Elon Musk, made plans earlier this year to terminate the leases of 34 U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration offices in 19 states.

Coal’s decades-long decline

The coal industry once provided more than half of U.S. electricity production. But it has been in steep decline for decades as operators went out of business and utilities installed more renewable energy and converted coal-fired plants to be fueled by cheaper and cleaner-burning natural gas.

U.S. coal production was at 1 billion tons in 2014 and fell to 578 million tons by 2023, the latest year available, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

American Electric Power’s John Amos coal-fired plant in Winfield, W.Va, is seen from the town of Poca across the Kanawha River, Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/John Raby)

Coal employment nationally peaked in the 1920s when there were about 900,000 miners. It was at about 350,000 in 1950 and has declined steadily since 1980. After the coronavirus pandemic, employment rebounded from 2022 to 2023, rising 4.2% to 45,476. West Virginia employed the most miners at 14,000, followed by Kentucky at 5,000. About half of the nation’s 560 coal mines are located in West Virginia (165) and Kentucky (112). Despite having just 15 mines, Wyoming was the highest-producing coal state due to mechanization and more accessible coal.

Mining fatalities over the past four decades have dropped significantly. There have been 11 or fewer deaths in each of the past five years, according to MSHA.

Targeting MSHA

MSHA is responsible for enforcing U.S. mine safety laws. It is required to inspect each underground mine quarterly and each surface mine twice a year. The cuts proposed by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency would require MSHA inspectors to travel farther to get to a mine, and that could mean less thorough inspections, said Jack Spadaro, a longtime mine safety investigator and environmental specialist who worked for that agency.

American Electric Power’s John Amos coal-fired plant in Winfield, W.Va, is seen from the town of Poca across the Kanawha River on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/John Raby)

According to the DOGE website, ending the MSHA leases is projected to save $18 million. It is unclear whether inspectors’ positions and other jobs from those offices would be moved to other facilities.

Seven of the MSHA offices set for closing are in Kentucky and four are in Pennsylvania. West Virginia is among the states with two targeted offices. Also under consideration for closure are the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement facilities in Lexington, Kentucky, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, shrinking the national footprint of an agency created during the Carter administration to restore land damaged by strip mining, and reclaim abandoned and damaged mine lands.

A recent review of publicly available data by the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center indicates that nearly 17,000 health and safety inspections were conducted from the beginning of 2024 through February 2025 by MSHA staff in the facilities on the chopping block.

What other uses are there for coal?

Industry advocates have long contended that there are other uses for coal, some of which use cleaner technology.

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Canonsburg, Pennsylvania-based Core Natural Resources is working to develop a process using West Virginia coal to create a synthetic material that can be used as an anode for lithium-ion batteries, reducing U.S. dependence on countries such as China, according to Matthew Mackowiak, the company’s director of government affairs.

Core recently acquired a company that turns coal into carbon foam that produces composite tooling used to make nose cones and plane wings for the U.S. defense industry.

“Whether or not there is any more coal-fired generation in the future, obviously that’s something else to talk about in the future,” Mackowiak said. “But at the very least, we need to be focused on maintaining our current coal fleet.”

By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Consumers across the U.S. still will be able to buy higher-ethanol blend E15 gasoline this summer, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday, saving them a little money at the pump but risking potential damage to the air and water.

The emergency waiver issued by the EPA prevents retailers in most states from having to stop selling E15 gasoline on May 1. While the waiver remains in effect only through May 20, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin signaled that he plans to keep issuing waivers through Sept. 15, the date when the federal government typically would allow E15 sales in all states again.

Most gasoline sold across the U.S. is blended with 10% ethanol, but 15% blends are becoming increasingly common, particularly in the Midwest, where most of the nation’s corn is grown. E15 gasoline generally costs at least 10 cents less a gallon than E10 gasoline, but the EPA had previously prohibited its sale during the summer over concerns that its use during the summer driving season could increase smog.

But the EPA has relaxed restrictions on E15, granting a series of short-term waivers in 2022, 2023 and 2024 to allow its sale nationwide through the summer. And last year, the EPA issued a rule allowing year-round sales in eight Midwestern states — Iowa, usually the nation’s top corn producer, as well as Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

Trump administration officials said Monday’s action will lower consumers’ costs and give them more choices at the pump while also increasing the demand for corn. They also described it as reducing America’s reliance on imported energy.

“Our nation’s great corn growers are critical to helping the U.S. achieve energy independence, which is essential to national security,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a statement.

While the ethanol industry and Iowa officials praised the EPA’s action, the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group for ethanol producers, argued that Congress should approve legislation allowing year-round E15 sales across the U.S.

“For the economic and energy security benefits of E15 to be fully realized, the marketplace needs long-term certainty,” President and CEO Geoff Cooper said.

The biofuels industry and politicians in both major parties argue that ethanol helps farmers, lowers prices at the pump and reduces greenhouse gas because the fuel burns more cleanly than straight gasoline.

But ethanol consumes about 40% of the nation’s corn crop, and environmentalists argue that higher corn production leads to higher use of fertilizers that are a leading source of water pollution.

Zack Pistora, Kansas lobbyist for the Sierra Club, said ethanol plants also use high amounts of water, and states like Kansas are worried about the depletion of aquifers. He said it’s “hypocritical” to portray ethanol as environmentally friendly and said the Trump administration should promote renewable energy, electric vehicles, public transportation and sustainable agriculture.

“We need to dramatically reduce our fossil fuel dependence, but relying on corn-based ethanol doesn’t put our country on the path it needs,” Pistora said in an interview.

By MICHELLE L. PRICE and CHRIS MEGERIAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Monday opened a weeklong celebration of Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office by focusing on his border crackdown, an area of relative strength for the president at a time when there are red flags for him in the latest round of polling.

Yard signs with mugshots of immigrants who have been accused of crimes like rape and murder were posted across the White House lawn, positioned so they would be in the background of television broadcasts outside the West Wing. Tom Homan, Trump’s top border adviser, told reporters that there has been “unprecedented success” on the border effort and “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”

White House border czar Tom Homan walks off following a television interview at the White House, Monday, April 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Immigration is Trump’s leading issue in public opinion surveys, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a morning briefing the administration is in “the beginning stages of carrying out the largest deportation campaign in American history.”

About 139,000 people have been removed so far, according to the White House. Deportations have occasionally lagged behind Democrat President Joe Biden’s numbers, but Trump officials reject the comparison as not “apples to apples” because so many fewer people are crossing the border now.

Later on Monday, Leavitt held a second briefing exclusively for “new media,” where Trump-aligned social media influencers asked friendly questions and applauded at the end.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, with White House border czar Tom Homan, speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Tuesday will be Trump’s 100th day in office, and the Republican president plans to mark the day in Michigan, where he will hold a rally in Macomb County, an automotive hub north of Detroit. After relatively little travel so far in his term, Trump will also deliver a commencement address Thursday at the University of Alabama.

Trump is also doing a number of interviews timed to the 100-day mark, including an Oval Office interview with ABC News that is to air Tuesday night. He’s also talked with journalists from The Atlantic magazine, a publication that he’s frequently attacked for its critical reporting.

Trump told The Atlantic that he feels more powerful in his second turn in the White House. His administration is stocked with loyalists, and he’s become even more confrontational with a judicial system that at times serves as a check on his agenda.

“The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” he said. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

President Donald Trump arrives on Marine One at the White House, Sunday, April 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Presidents have marked the initial 100 days of their terms since Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved swiftly to counter the Great Depression after taking office in 1933.

Trump wasn’t so bullish about the idea during his first term, when he was plagued by setbacks, investigations and turnover in his ranks, at that time calling the 100-day mark ” an artificial barrier.”

But now he’s trying to harness the moment to mark the ambitious agenda he’s pursued in his first months. Leavitt said Trump had already signed almost as many executive orders as Biden did during his entire term.

But many Americans believe Trump has mostly been focused on the wrong priorities.

Americans are nearly twice as likely to say Trump has been mostly focusing on the wrong priorities as to say he has been focusing on the right ones, according to an AP-NORC survey, and only about half of Republicans say he’s mostly had the right focus. Another one-quarter of Republicans say it’s been about an even mix of right and wrong priorities, and about 1 in 10 say he’s focusing on the wrong things.

And among Trump’s own supporters, the share of Republicans who say he has been at least a “good” president has fallen about 10 percentage points since January.

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Other polls conducted in recent weeks have found similar levels of dissatisfaction with Trump’s first few months, particularly with his economic policies and approach to tariffs.

Trump lashed out at the results on social media as “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.”

As he’s pushed to crack down on illegal immigration, Trump has drawn criticism as he has strained the limits of executive power, attacked judges who’ve ruled against him, sent hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a mega-prison in El Salvador in defiance of a court order and balked at a Supreme Court order that his administration must facilitate the return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador.

His plans to carry out a mass deportation have not yet shaped up, but the White House is ramping up efforts to encourage people who are in the country illegally to “self-deport,” with actions that include stiffer fines and incentives to leave, including airfare and stipends.

His administration has pointed to the steep drop in the number of illegal border crossings as an early and significant sign of success.

Trump planned to sign at least two executive orders later Monday related to immigration, including one directing state and federal officials to publish a list of “sanctuary city” jurisdictions.

Associated Press writer Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

By JACQUES BILLEAUD and MORGAN LEE, Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The main cause of Gene Hackman’s death was heart disease, but he was also in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease and likely had not eaten for a long time, according to a new autopsy report.

The report documents the 95-year-old actor’s poor heart health, noting he had experienced congestive heart failure, an aortic valve replacement and an irregular heart beat. He was given a pacemaker in April 2019.

Hackman’s carbon monoxide concentration was less than 5% saturation, which is within the normal range. He tested negative for the hantavirus, which is a rare but potentially fatal disease spread by infected rodent droppings.

FILE – Actor Gene Hackman arrives with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, for the 60th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Jan. 19, 2003. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

Authorities have said Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa, likely died Feb. 11 at home from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Her autopsy report hasn’t yet been released.

A toxicology report says Hackman tested negative for alcohol and intoxicating drugs, but that he had a low concentration of acetone in his system that indicates prolonged fasting.

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Hackman appeared to have outlived Arakawa at home by about a week, possibly unaware of his wife’s death. Hackman’s pacemaker showed an abnormal heart rhythm on Feb. 18 — the day he likely died, according to the state’s chief medical examiner.

Records released earlier in the investigation showed Arakawa made phone calls and internet searches as she scoured for information on flu-like symptoms and breathing techniques.

Recently released videos outline the scope of the investigation into the deaths of Hackman and Arakawa.

Before they understood how Hackman and Arakawa died, authorities recorded themselves conducting interviews with workers and returning to Hackman’s home to search for more evidence. Detectives searched the home in early March for Arakawa’s laptop and other clues.

Billeaud reported from Phoenix.