Wars on coal: Diverging Conservative, libertarian, and republican perspectives on coal during the Trump presidency

This article deals with the response of US conservative and libertarian experts to public policies put in place by the Trump administration in relation to the coal industry. It highlights significant differences between these experts and the Trump administration. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of texts written by these experts and a questionnaire filled by them, the article shows that, whilst most experts endorsed attempts by the Trump administration at deregulating the coal industry in the US, a majority of them are opposed to direct federal support for coal. Although the experts under study do not constitute an ideologically monolithic group, there is some evidence to suggest that, in matters of energy policy, free-market policy experts tend to consistently favor market-driven approaches to energy whereas many Republican officials only favor some industries at the expense of others.