A leading domestic energy advocacy group praised EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s announcement that his agency would undo recent additions to the federal ‘mercury and air-toxics standards’ (MATS) for coal-fired power plants.

Zeldin said removing the restrictions allows the already ‘robust’ MATS standards to remain in effect, ensuring both public health and the health of America’s coal industry amid a push for U.S. energy dominance.

‘The Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to regulate out of existence this vital sector of our energy economy. If implemented, these actions would have destroyed reliable American energy,’ Zeldin said, adding that protecting the environment and supporting industry and baseload power is not a ‘binary choice.’

In response, Power the Future founder Daniel Turner told Fox News Digital the move is a significant step toward revitalizing the American coal industry and, in turn, fueling economies in economically depressed industrial communities throughout Appalachia and beyond.

‘Since the war on coal, we have weakened our grid, driven electricity prices through the roof, outsourced major industries to Mexico and China, but most of all driven tens of thousands of Americans into ruin because of a globalist agenda,’ Turner said Friday, adding that the costs of a crippled coal industry went far beyond shuttered infrastructure.

‘The cruel Obama-led war on coal ruined numerous towns across rural America, drove families into poverty, caused alcoholism, opioid addiction, domestic violence, and suicide to skyrocket.

‘Power The Future started because of coal miners, the acceptable casualties in the globalist climate change agenda,’ added Turner, whose group is based in coal-heavy Virginia.

‘Restoring America’s coal dominance is good for our national security and economy, and it restores the dignity of small-town coal workers whose labor is vital to America’s survival.’

Many of America’s poorest counties are in what were once very wealthy coal communities, including McDowell and Mingo counties in West Virginia and Bell, Letcher, McCreary and Breathitt counties in Kentucky, where Vice President JD Vance’s family is from.

During much of the 20th century, McDowell County — and its seat, Welch — was the No. 1 coal-producing county in the U.S. and home to 100,000 people — a population boom some credit with spurring construction of what became the nation’s first parking deck, which is still standing today in Welch.

Now, about one-quarter of McDowell residents live in poverty while the median income is around $30,000.

Turner alluded to those conditions in comments to Fox News Digital, saying people must ‘never forget or forgive the drivers of the war on coal for their cruel attacks on a vital industry found only in rural America.

‘[Anti-coal politicians] fly private jets to attend global climate summits while they orchestrated an evil attack on the coal miner making America weaker and China richer.’

Turner quipped that any ‘anti-coal activist’ is invited to join him in visiting coal-producing communities but may be unhappy to get dirt on their clothing and find lodging not up to ‘Four Seasons’ standards.

‘We need coal. There is not one product around you right now that was not touched by coal, and to lower prices, bring market stability and ensure economic growth, we need to dominate the coal industry,’ Turner said.

‘Sadly, the liberal elite who launched the war on coal are too ignorant or too indifferent to know this. The ignorant can be educated, and that’s what I try to do at Power The Future. But the indifferent must be defeated, as they are a threat to our liberty, property and prosperity. I will never stop until I defeat them all,’ he said, calling President Donald Trump the ‘greatest coal president in history.’

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy fired back at the policy change, telling the AP that ‘by weakening pollution limits and monitoring for brain-damaging mercury and other pollutants, they are actively undermining any attempt to make America — and our children — healthy.’

The CIA on Friday said that director John Ratcliffe had ordered the retraction or ‘substantive revision’ of 19 intelligence assessments over the past decade that were deemed to be politically biased.

In a release, the CIA included three redacted assessments from between 2015 and 2021 that related to White women’s extremist radicalization, attacks on LGBT activists in the Middle East and Africa, and the COVID-19 pandemic limiting access to birth control in developing countries.

‘The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned,’ Ratcliffe said in a statement.

He added, ‘There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record. These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis. Our recent successes in Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE and Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER exemplify our dedication to analytic excellence.’

The CIA release said the assessments were identified by the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which did an independent review on hundreds of reports from the last decade, adding that the assessments ‘did not meet CIA and IC analytic tradecraft standards and failed to be independent of political consideration.’

The agency said an internal review led by Deputy Director Michael Ellis ‘agreed that they did not meet the high standards the American people expect from CIA’s elite analytic workforce.’

The first of the three reports included in the release was titled ‘Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment,’ and was published in October 2021, in the first year of the Biden administration.

It focused on women in groups overseas ‘that incite, facilitate or conduct violence because they believe that their perception of an idealized, white European ethnic identity is under attack from people who embody and support multiculturalism and globalization.’

The second report was titled ‘Middle East-North AfricaLGBT Activists Under Pressure, and was released near the end of the Obama administration.

That assessment claimed that ‘The tough stance taken against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community by governments in the Middle East probably is driven by conservative public opinion and domestic political competition from Islamists, and is hindering US initiatives in support of LGBT rights.’

The last declassified report included in the CIA release was titled ‘Worldwide: Pandemic-Related Contraceptive Shortfalls Threaten Economic Development, and was published in July 2020, nearly the end of President Donald Trump’s first term.

‘The COVID-19 pandemic is limiting contraceptive access in the developing world and will probably undermine efforts to address population pressures there that are hindering economic development,’ it stated.

A senior administration official who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity said that most of the rest of the flagged assessments dealt with diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Times added that former officials it spoke to both questioned the decision to declassify the three documents and the claims that the assessments were flawed, believing they just showed the policy priorities of past administrations.

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an order imposing a 10% ‘global tariff’ following the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision that he does not have the authority to levy sweeping tariffs under a specific emergency powers law.

‘It is my Great Honor to have just signed, from the Oval Office, a Global 10% Tariff on all Countries, which will be effective almost immediately,’ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Friday evening.

The order was issued under Section 122 and applies in addition to the standard tariffs that are already in place, the president announced during a White House press briefing Friday afternoon.

He also announced the launch of several Section 301 investigations and other inquiries aimed at shielding the U.S. from what he described as unfair trade practices by foreign governments and companies.

The high court blocked Trump’s tariffs levied under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in what amounts to a major test of executive branch authority. 

The president noted he will pursue ‘alternatives’ to tariffs under emergency law.

‘Other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected,’ Trump said. ‘We have alternatives. Great alternatives. Could be more money. We’ll take in more money, and we’ll be a lot stronger for it. We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. We’ll continue to do so.’

Trump called the ruling ‘deeply disappointing,’ saying he was ‘ashamed’ of certain members of the court.

‘I’m ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed, for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,’ the president said. ‘In actuality, I was very modest in my ask of other countries and businesses because… I wanted to be very well-behaved.

‘I didn’t want to do anything that would affect the decision of the court, because I understand the court. I understand how they are very easily swayed. I want to be a good boy. I have very effectively utilized tariffs over the past year to make America great again,’ he said.

A source outside the Trump administration told Fox News that an aide came into the closed-door White House breakfast with governors earlier Friday and handed Trump a note about the Supreme Court ruling.

The source said Trump ‘called it a disgrace, and then he went on with the remarks.’

Some of the Supreme Court’s nine justices will likely be sitting in the audience when the president delivers the State of the Union address on Tuesday.

‘The Democrats on the court are thrilled, but they will automatically vote no,’ Trump said during the news conference. ‘They also are a, frankly, disgrace to our nation… They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution. It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think.’

In the opinion, the high court declared, ‘Our task today is to decide only whether the power to ‘regulate… importation,’ as granted to the President in IEEPA, embraces the power to impose tariffs. It does not.’

Trump has made tariffs a key plank of his economic agenda since retaking the Oval Office last year, but his policies have not come without controversy.

Republican reaction to the ruling has been mixed.

Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., slammed the high court’s decision.

‘The Supreme Court just undercut the President’s ability to defend American workers. President Donald Trump was elected to fight unfair trade and stop the United States from being ripped off. I’m outraged by this decision; it’s clearly judicial overreach,’ Carter asserted in a post on X.

But Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., welcomed the ruling.

‘In defense of our Republic, the Supreme Court struck down using emergency powers to enact taxes. This ruling will also prevent a future President such as AOC from using emergency powers to enact socialism,’ Paul noted in a post on X.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., also hailed the decision.

‘The Constitution’s checks and balances still work. Article One gives tariff authority to Congress. This was a common-sense and straightforward ruling by the Supreme Court. I feel vindicated as I’ve been saying this for the last 12 months. In the future, Congress should defend its own authorities and not rely on the Supreme Court. Besides the Constitutional concerns I had on the Administration’s broad-based tariffs, I also do not think tariffs are smart economic policy. Broad-based tariffs are bad economics,’ Bacon wrote in a post on X.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Congress and the administration will determine the ‘best path forward’ in the coming weeks.

‘No one can deny that the President’s use of tariffs has brought in billions of dollars and created immense leverage for America’s trade strategy and for securing strong, reciprocal America-first trade agreements with countries that had been taking advantage of American workers for decades,’ Johnson wrote in an X post.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

A leading domestic energy advocacy group praised EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s announcement that his agency would undo recent additions to the federal ‘mercury and air-toxics standards’ (MATS) for coal-fired power plants.

Zeldin said removing the restrictions allows the already ‘robust’ MATS standards to remain in effect, ensuring both public health and the health of America’s coal industry amid a push for U.S. energy dominance.

‘The Biden-Harris Administration’s anti-coal regulations sought to regulate out of existence this vital sector of our energy economy. If implemented, these actions would have destroyed reliable American energy,’ Zeldin said at the Mills Creek Power Plant in Kentucky, adding that protecting the environment and supporting industry and baseload power is not a ‘binary choice.’

In response, Power the Future founder Daniel Turner told Fox News Digital the move is a significant step toward revitalizing the American coal industry and, in turn, fueling economies in economically depressed industrial communities throughout Appalachia and beyond.

‘Since the war on coal, we have weakened our grid, driven electricity prices through the roof, outsourced major industries to Mexico and China, but most of all driven tens of thousands of Americans into ruin because of a globalist agenda,’ Turner said Friday, adding that the costs of a crippled coal industry went far beyond shuttered infrastructure:

‘The cruel Obama-led war on coal ruined numerous towns across rural America, drove families into poverty, caused alcoholism, opioid addiction, domestic violence, and suicide to skyrocket.’

‘Power The Future started because of coal miners, the acceptable casualties in the globalist climate change agenda,’ said Turner, whose group is based in coal-heavy Virginia.

‘Restoring America’s coal dominance is good for our national security and economy, and it restores the dignity of small-town coal workers whose labor is vital to America’s survival.’

Many of America’s poorest counties are in what were once very wealthy coal communities — including McDowell and Mingo counties in West Virginia and Bell, Letcher, McCreary, and Breathitt counties in Kentucky, where Vice President JD Vance’s family is from.

During much of the 20th century, McDowell County — and its seat, Welch — was the No. 1 coal-producing county in the U.S. and home to 100,000 people — a population boom some credit with spurring construction of what became the nation’s first parking deck, which is still standing today in Welch.

Now, about one-quarter of McDowell residents live in poverty while the median income is around $30,000.

Turner alluded to those conditions in comments to Fox News Digital, saying people must ‘never forget or forgive the drivers of the war on coal for their cruel attacks on a vital industry found only in rural America.’

‘[Anti-coal politicians] fly private jets to attend global climate summits while they orchestrated an evil attack on the coal miner making America weaker and China richer.’

Turner quipped that any ‘anti-coal activist’ is invited to join him in visiting coal-producing communities but may be unhappy to get dirt on their clothing and find lodging not up to ‘Four Seasons’ standards.

‘We need coal. There is not one product around you right now that was not touched by coal, and to lower prices, bring market stability and ensure economic growth, we need to dominate the coal industry,’ Turner said.

‘Sadly, the liberal elite who launched the war on coal are too ignorant or too indifferent to know this. The ignorant can be educated, and that’s what I try to do at Power The Future. But the indifferent must be defeated, as they are a threat to our liberty, property and prosperity. I will never stop until I defeat them all,’ he said, calling President Donald Trump the ‘greatest coal president in history.’

Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy fired back at the policy change, telling the AP that ‘by weakening pollution limits and monitoring for brain-damaging mercury and other pollutants, they are actively undermining any attempt to make America — and our children — healthy.’