The Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency are set to announce a bevy of new actions Tuesday afternoon that will ‘unleash’ coal energy following President Donald Trump’s expected signature on an executive order reinvigorating ‘America’s beautiful clean coal industry,’ Fox News Digital learned. 

‘The American people need more energy, and the Department of Energy is helping to meet this demand by unleashing supply of affordable, reliable, secure energy sources — including coal,’ Department of Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a Tuesday statement provided to Fox News Digital. 

‘Coal is essential for generating 24/7 electricity generation that powers American homes and businesses, but misguided policies from previous administrations have stifled this critical American industry,’ he said. ‘With President Trump’s leadership, we are cutting the red tape and bringing back common sense.’

Trump is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday afternoon that will cut through red tape surrounding the coal industry, including directing the National Energy Dominance Council to designate coal as a ‘mineral,’ end a current pause to coal leasing on federal lands, promote coal and coal technology exports, and encourage the use of coal to power artificial intelligence initiatives, Fox News Digital learned of the upcoming executive order. 

The Departments of Energy and the Interior and the EPA will take actions supporting the Trump executive order Tuesday, including the Interior ending the current moratorium on federal coal leasing and removing regulatory burdens for coal mines, a press release first obtained by Fox Digital shows. 

‘The Golden Age is here, and we are starting to ‘Mine, Baby, Mine’ for clean American coal,’Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. ‘Interior is unlocking America’s full potential in energy dominance and economic development to make life more affordable for every American family while showing the world the power of America’s natural resources and innovation.’ 

The Interior Department explained that by expanding acces to coal reserves and cutting through red tape surrounding the permitting process, ‘the administration is removing long-standing regulatory barriers that have undermined American coal production.’

‘These efforts support high-paying mining jobs and rural economies, while strengthening U.S. energy independence by reducing reliance on foreign energy sources,’ the press release stated. ‘Coal is a critical component of a secure, stable and diversified American energy portfolio.’ 

At the Department of Energy, Wright is expected to announce five initiatives to strengthen coal innovation and mineral independence, Fox Digital learned. The five actions include: Reinstating of the National Coal Council; facilitating new investment in coal-powered electricity generation; the designation of steelmaking coal as a critical material and mineral; deploying mineral extraction technology from coal ash; and commercializing coal ash conversion technologies. 

The National Coal Council is a 50-member federal advisory committee that was established in 1984, but saw its charter expire under the Biden administration in 2021. The council acted as a guide for the government while navigating coal technologies and markets. Once reinstated, the council will include coal producers, users, equipment suppliers, state and local officials, and other stakeholders, according to a Department of Energy press release first obtained by Fox News Digital Tuesday. 

The Energy Department’s Loan Program Office’s Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment (EIR) Program will also make $200 billion in financing available for coal energy investments, such as upgrading energy infrastructure and building new facilities that utilize legacy energy infrastructure.

The Department of Energy also will work with the Interior Department to recommend that coal, in the context of steelmaking, be designated as critical material and a critical mineral in the 2025 Critical Materials Assessment. 

‘This strategic designation will help ensure the U.S. maintains a stable supply of steelmaking coal in the decades to come and underscores the vital role of steelmaking coal in bolstering national security and economic stability,’ the Energy Department explained of the initiative. 

The department is also expected to heighten its focus on coal ash, specifically employing its newly patented technology to extract critical minerals from coal ash, and commercializing the recovery of critical minerals from coal ash, which the Department of Energy said will reduce the U.S.’ reliance on China for such materials. 

‘The Energy Department is committed to restoring American energy dominance and strengthening America’s industrial base,’ the Department of Energy said of the initiative. ‘Secretary Wright will continue to work with all members of the National Energy Dominance Council to eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens on coal and unleash American energy.’ 

While the EPA is set to announce that $5.8 million in State and Tribal Assistance Grants funds will be made available to provide grants assisting states in the implementation of EPA-approved state Coal Combustion Residual program, which comes after Zeldin’s EPA already has taken a handful of coal-related actions, such as reconsidering the Biden-era ‘Clean Power Plan 2.0.’ plan and revising coal regulations. 

‘President Trump is delivering on the mandate Americans gave him last November by empowering different forms of domestic energy to drive down costs, increase domestic energy supply, and improve our grid security as we pioneer the path to become the Artificial Intelligence capital of the world,’ EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in comment provided to Fox News Digital. 

‘The Obama and Biden administrations deliberately tried to regulate coal out of existence. Under my leadership, economic growth and environmental stewardship are not mutually exclusive choices. We are committed to supporting all forms of energy, including clean beautiful coal, and have already taken steps to bolster America’s energy dominance and make energy affordable again while ensuring we have the cleanest air, land and water on the planet,’ Zeldin added. 

Producing energy at home in the U.S. was a cornerstone of Trump’s campaign, with the then-candidate vowing that the U.S. would no longer rely on foreign nations for oil by reinvigorating the coal industry, and tapping oil in the U.S.

‘We will develop the liquid gold that is right under our feet, including American oil and natural gas and we will also embrace nuclear, clean coal, hydropower, which is fantastic, and every other form of affordable energy to get it done,’ Trump said in 2023. 

The Tuesday executive order is expected to build on Trump’s pledge to make the U.S. energy independent while also providing cheaper energy costs to Americans, and follows previous actions such as withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, terminating the liberal climate plan dubbed the Green New Deal in a January executive order, and reversing a pause on liquefied natural exports, a fact sheet on the upcoming executive order argued. 

President Donald Trump wants to make the U.S. the ‘crypto capital of the world,’ and a top White House cryptocurrency policy official said that the administration is well on its way to ushering in ‘the golden age for digital assets.’ 

Bo Hines, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets, sat for an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital this week to outline the Trump administration’s work thus far in the cryptocurrency space.

Cryptocurrency, or ‘crypto’ for short, is a digital currency in which transactions are verified and records maintained by a decentralized system using cryptography that enables secure online payments for individuals or businesses.

‘The president has made this a priority, and it is a testament to his leadership and his knowledge in the space,’ Hines explained. ‘Unlike any president before him, he has truly embraced this technological development in a way that no one else has, which has allowed us to do what we need to do to make the United States the crypto capital of the world.’ 

Hines told Fox News Digital that officials have focused on ‘clearing the deck’ and ensuring that ‘what was happening under the Biden regulatory regime has been rescinded and repealed.’ 

Under the Biden administration, Hines said Americans using cryptocurrency went ‘offshore due to the nature of attacks they specifically received under the Biden regime.’ 

‘We will start seeing a lot of those players come back to the United States in short order because, look, we are the greatest country in the world. People want to innovate here. People want to build here. And this space is no different,’ he said. ‘At the end of the day, the largest players to the smallest players want to be operating in the United States—they just need a clear set of rules to abide by to do so.’ 

Hines said that under the Biden administration, ‘rather than welcoming in innovation and encouraging technological developments, they went after these people.’ 

‘We’ve been in the demolition phase—removing a lot of those barriers that the Biden regime put up so that people can actually start building back here in the United States.’

‘My main message to players in the crypto space has been—welcome home,’ Hines said. ‘We are going to create the most pro-crypto-friendly regulatory environment that anyone could possibly imagine because we understand how important the innovation is here in this space.’ 

Hines explained that during the first week of the second Trump administration, the president set up the interagency working group—the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets—which includes officials from the Treasury Department, the SEC, CFTC, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and more. 

Trump’s executive order directed the working group to explore several digital asset-related issues, including looking into the ‘potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile’ and proposing ‘criteria for establishing such a stockpile, potentially derived from cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts.’

‘With this group and other White House offices, we are working on delivering on the president’s promise to clear the deck and have all of these burdens and regulations lifted,’ Hines said. 

The group is currently in the process of compiling recommendations and building a comprehensive report they will deliver to the president later this year. The report is designed to explain the ‘clearest regulatory environment possible’ in the space, and recommendations for how the U.S. maintains its role as ‘the dominant leader in the space across the globe.’ 

As for legislation, Hines pointed to the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or the STABLE Act. That legislation, which passed out of the House Financial Services Committee on a bipartisan vote, establishes framework for the issuance and operation of dollar-denominated payment stablecoins in the U.S. 

‘I think the Stable Coin legislation could be the first really, truly large and meaningful piece of legislation that the president signs in the first year of a second term,’ Hines said, noting it would ‘truly revolutionize the financial system for years to come.’ 

‘I think that Americans will see that once this legislation is through—once this regulatory framework is established—the way in which they move their money will be changed forever,’ Hines said. ‘You will see that Americans will have better access to quicker payments and better access to transparency.’ 

A Democrat on the House Oversight Committee accused the Trump administration of offloading federal real estate in a haphazard ‘fire sale’ as Republicans aim to cut wasteful government spending by selling unused or underutilized government buildings. 

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., the ranking Democrat on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee, took issue with the Trump administration’s approach during a hearing on Tuesday on reducing the federal real estate portfolio.

‘The Trump administration is currently taking a fire sale approach of looting the federal government and stripping it for parts to pay for tax cuts that we know will come up in their reconciliation deal,’ the lawmaker said.

DOGE is working with the federal government’s General Services Administration (GSA) to ‘rightsize’ its portfolio and cut wasteful spending. GSA has produced the most savings across federal agencies, according to the official DOGE website.

The GSA’s cost-cutting efforts have already resulted in nearly 700 lease terminations, eliminating 7.9 million square feet of federal office space and saving taxpayers approximately $400 million, according to subcommittee chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

John Hart, CEO of Open the Books, testified that $1 billion could be saved on furniture alone by not renewing leases on government buildings that are set to expire in 2027.

David Marroni, director of physical infrastructure at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, testified that no government agency ‘had a great track record in terms of the utilization’ of their physical headquarters’ footprints.

Marroni said there could be substantial savings in reducing government workspaces.

‘It’s about $8 billion a year on owned and leased office space, so any reduction is going to generate a lot of money,’ he said.

Democrats at the hearing lobbed criticism at President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading the DOGE effort, with Stansbury accusing DOGE of being ‘a front’ to support billionaires ‘who are trying to privatize public services.’ 

‘And just this week, we have seen, as Elon Musk is on his exit out of the federal government, he has secured billions of dollars in new contracts across the federal government. Conflict of interest? Yes, absolutely,’ Stansbury said.

The congresswoman claimed that Musk has secured contracts and promises for contracts at the Department of Defense and NASA, and is asking to install SpaceX’s Starlink Wi-Fi at federal agencies. Starlink, which is a subsidiary of Musk-owned SpaceX, was reportedly installed at the White House last month.

‘And we understand that there is the potential to potentially deploy his AI technology across the federal agencies to replace the tens of thousands of federal employees that have recently been illegally fired,’ Stansbury claimed.

As of Tuesday, DOGE claims on its site that it has saved Americans $140 billion, or about $870 per taxpayer.

Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller and Deirdre Heavey contributed to this report.

A former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) senior staffer is speaking out about problems at the agency under the Biden administration, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), and failures to combat China flooding the U.S. market with illicit vapes after the FDA’s top tobacco official was removed from his position. 

I think many of us had been anticipating it for quite some time, we knew that change was drastically needed at FDA when it came to tobacco control, because tobacco control had really gotten out of control,’ David Oliveira, who recently left the FDA after six years, said in response to FDA chief tobacco regulator Brian King being removed from his post earlier this month. 

‘There were many, many failures in the key core missions for the center that needed dramatic change in new leadership. Many of us, whether it be from public health, consumers, small business owners, industry, including even Senator Dick Durbin, who last year at a hearing said to Brian King, ‘It looks to me like you have fallen down on the job.’ So really it runs the spectrum with the people that are unhappy with what’s gone on recently with the FDA in terms of tobacco regulation.’

One of the most prominent missteps at the FDA over the past few years, according to Oliveira, was the influx of illicit Chinese vapes into the U.S. market, which he says made him feel like a ‘canary in a coal mine’ as he warned about the potential dangers and little was done. 

Although the rate of youths smoking cigarettes is now at an all-time low, according to the CDC, youth use of Chinese vapes has increased dramatically since 2020, as China has become the world’s leading producer of e-cigarettes, often promoting illicit vapes with flavors appealing to children. 

Sales of unauthorized, flavored disposable vapes in the United States amounted to around $2.4 billion in 2024, or 35% of the e-cigarettes from outlets such as convenience stores and supermarkets, Reuters reported.

That compares to sales worth $3.2 billion in 2023 and $2.8 billion in 2022, the data, which comes from market research firm Circana, shows. 

We have set up a regulated system, which most of the American players have said, okay, these are the rules of the road, we will obey them, we will comply, and we expect, we hope that our products will be authorized,’ Oliveira explained. ‘The Chinese have said, well, forget that. There’s huge consumer demand for these products for billions of dollars, and we will shamelessly, recklessly, irresponsibly market these products, dump them on our shores because they know there’s billions of dollars to be had. And then, unfortunately, the FDA was ill-equipped, ill-prepared. Didn’t have the skill to go after and shut that down. And now we have an industry that’s absolutely out of control with these products.’

Oliveira told Fox News Digital that the agency has been delegating too much power to other departments like Border Patrol and Department of Justice rather than using the authority it has to crack down with boots on the ground against China’s market flooding, adding that a ‘lack of focus’ and ‘cavalier attitude’ has left the U.S. behind the 8-ball. 

Oliveira says that the FDA approves or authorizes only about two products a year, which has allowed China to dominate the market. 

Under King, the FDA rejected applications for millions of flavored e-cigarettes, citing insufficient data that the products would help adult smokers. Those rejections have resulted in multiple lawsuits against the FDA from vape makers, including one that was argued before the Supreme Court in December.

Another issue under King, Oliveira explained, was that DEI became a prominent focus that ultimately led to less focus on getting the job in front of them done correctly.

I think we saw a lot more of that once Brian King came in and the fact of the matter is his version of DEI was some of the things that many people don’t find appealing,’ Oliveira said. ‘The idea of virtue signaling or doing it just to be able to wear it on your sleeve and talk about it. So you just do things around the edges like, oh, let’s change and stop using the word grandfathered because of the historical overtones and origins of that term. And then let’s have everyone put their pronouns in their email.’

The FDA recently removed DEI materials from its website amid President Donald Trump signing executive orders to rid the practice from the federal government and instead focus on meritocracy. Oliveira told Fox News Digital that DEI was a distraction from the mission at the FDA. 

‘I think it made some people uncomfortable just because of the focus on it when we knew that our work was so critical to helping people live healthier lives, that there was so much work to be done, that we were behind the 8-ball because of all the mistakes and because of this very fast-moving industry that government will always struggle to keep up with the technology. There was much work to be done. There was so more that we could have been doing that we weren’t doing. So anytime you have anything that you feel like takes your eye off the ball a little bit, that can be frustrating in the workplace for sure.’

Oliveira also told Fox News Digital that the FDA under King in the Biden years was beholden to the ‘crusade’ against menthol cigarettes, led by prominent voices like billionaire Michael Bloomberg, which he says was based more on a ‘paternalistic’ attitude toward the Black community than it was about making a positive difference. 

In recent years, the FDA’s tobacco center has been besieged by criticism from all sides.

Politicians, parents and anti-tobacco groups want the FDA to do more to stamp out unauthorized vaping products that can appeal to teens, many of which are imported from China. Tobacco and vaping companies say the FDA has been too slow to approve newer products for adult smokers — including e-cigarettes — that generally carry much lower risks than traditional cigarettes.

‘King’s crusade against vaping was public health sabotage, fueled by half-truths and a vendetta against flavors that saved lives,’  Jim McCarthy, spokesman for American Vapor Manufacturers, the leading trade association for the independent vape industry which penned a recent scathing op-ed against King, told Fox News Digital in a statement. 

‘He crushed small American businesses, sparked black markets, and ushered in hundreds of new combustible cigarette products. It was a masterclass in hypocrisy: he preached health equity while his policies ravaged marginalized communities by stripping them of safer alternatives to smoking. And while tobacco companies thrived, he sneered at the powerless and never found the simple integrity to tell Americans the truth that vaping is the most effective way to quit smoking and is vastly safer than cigarettes.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the FDA and King for comment. 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.