In early April, President Donald Trump gathered dozens of hard-hat-clad coal miners around him in the White House East Room. He joked about arm-wrestling them and announced he was signing executive orders to boost coal production, “bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” and to “put the miners back to work.”

Trump said he calls it “beautiful, clean” coal. “I tell my people never use the word ‘coal’ unless you put ‘beautiful, clean’ before it.”

That same day, the Trump administration paused implementation of a rule that would help protect coal miners from an aggressive form of black lung disease. Enforcement of the new protections is officially halted until at least mid-August, according to a federal announcement that came a few days after a federal court agreed to put enforcement

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