The Trump administration is wreaking havoc in seemingly random ways, but if you put their actions together like a carefully curated, MAGAfied puzzle, it appears to spell out something more nefarious.
On May 15, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin said during a hearing that he planned to make the United States the “AI capital of the world,” giving a glimpse into the Trump administration’s broader plans for dirty energy.
President Donald Trump is giving artificial intelligence the red carpet treatment, but he needs dirty energy to do it. To make this happen, “Daddy Trump” can’t just sign an executive order and go on his merry way—even if that seems to be the status quo these days.
Instead, each Cabinet member is chipping away at pieces of green legislation, regulations, closed coal mines, and more to make sure that energy-guzzling corporations have the resources they need.
For Zeldin, he’s making sure that coal factories don’t have pesky regulations on pollution. In fact, corporations can now submit their complaints to an email server if they feel that any green regulation is particularly bothersome, which is great news for Big Coal, considering it will soon have a lot more raw material coming down the assembly line.
Thanks to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, coal mines that were once shut down have been reopening. Even new uranium mines—a vital energy source for AI—are bypassing environmental checks.
But moves like cracking open once-protected lands in Alaska to harvest dirty energy have raised eyebrows among environmentalists. Earlier this month, Burgum flaunted a hardhat as he toured the icy terrain of Alaska to brag about a new venture: tapping into protected lands.
But the goal for Alaska’s oil isn’t just to fuel AI but to become a supplier for other countries. As for the coal mines, however, convincing young people to dive into the mines has become increasingly difficult. And with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cutting resources for current miners to obtain free lung health screenings, it probably doesn’t help.
Then again, the Trump administration is prioritizing energy output over career viability—because to become the “AI capital of the world,” the United States will need to produce a lot more energy.
Even Energy Secretary Chris Wright agrees with that sentiment.
“We have to lead and win the AI race, just like we did Manhattan Project,” he said last month. “This is Manhattan Project 2.”
That’s certainly good news for the Trump administration’s goal of becoming the “AI capital of the world”—and bad news for everyone else.