"Trump Wants To Lift Restrictions On ‘Clean Coal.’ Whatever That Is."

"In a video released Monday, president-elect Donald Trump pledged that in his first 100 days in office he would abolish a host of regulations to stimulate domestic energy production.

'I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy, including shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs,' he said. 'That’s what we want, that’s what we’ve been waiting for.'

Trump didn’t spell out what restrictions he has in mind. While energy experts and businesses can point to a variety of federal environmental regulations on oil and gas drilling, most were perplexed by what Trump might have been talking about with regard to restrictions on 'clean coal.'

'There aren’t any restrictions on clean coal, on the research on making coal cleaner. I don’t think that there’s restrictions on that. Indeed the Department of Energy has been actively funding research on clean coal. So what he must be implying there is that any restrictions on coal are restrictions on clean coal,' said Tom McGarity, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in the regulatory process."

Chris Mooney and Steven Mufson report for the Washington Post November 22, 2016.