February 11, 2026 - President Donald Trump is set to be awarded the Washington Coal Club’s inaugural “Undisputed Champion of Coal” title for his controversial efforts to roll back federal greenhouse-gas regulations.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that Trump will receive the non-profit coal advocacy club’s award as his administration prepares to announce funding for five coal-fired power plants. Energy Secretary Chris Wright will also announce a new executive order directing the Defense Department to buy electricity from coal plants.

Those moves come as the Trump administration prepares to rollback Obama-era clean energy regulations based on an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) endangerment finding from 2009.

That report found that six greenhouse gases from power plants and “new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines” contributed to “pollution that threatens public health and welfare.”

The EPA this week will issue a final rule rescinding the EPA’s endangerment finding.

The Trump administration’s new guidelines would eliminate federal requirements for automakers and other regulated industries to measure and report greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles. Companies would also no longer need to certify or comply with emission standards.

“This amounts to the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told the Wall Street Journal.

Trump, who refers to climate change as a “hoax” and “con job,” has long sought to block or impede green energy projects while looking to bolster the coal industry.

During his first day back in office last year, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, an international treaty aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change driven in part by industrial emissions.

“Trump’s decisions make no sense from either the perspective of environmental protection or the cost of energy,” Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University science historian and professor of earth and planetary sciences, said in an interview with The Guardian.

“By blocking wind projects that are just about ready to go online, and reviving dangerous and uneconomic coal-powered plants, this administration is raising both the direct costs of energy for the American people, and the indirect costs we suffer through polluted air and climate damage.”

Any move that effectively repeals the EPA regulations would almost certainly face legal challenges, with environmental groups characterizing the shift as the most sweeping assault in U.S. history on federal efforts to combat climate change.

Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, issued a scathing statement criticizing the Trump administration’s forthcoming announcement.

“The Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has the responsibility and authority to limit climate pollution, and the Endangerment Finding has been essential to the progress we’ve all benefited from ever since,” Krupp said.

“The unlawful, year-long effort by the political leadership at EPA rejects the overwhelming evidence that climate pollution threatens everyone’s health and safety,” he added.