The Associated Press is reporting that the Trump administration has turned down a plea from Murray Energy to keep certain coal-fired power plants open:

The Trump administration has rejected a coal industry push to win a rarely used emergency order protecting coal-fired power plants, a decision contrary to what one coal executive said the president personally promised him.

The Energy Department says it considered issuing the order sought by companies seeking relief for plants it says are overburdened by environmental rules and market stresses. But the department ultimately ruled it was unnecessary, and the White House agreed, a spokeswoman said.

Later in the article:

President Donald Trump committed to the measure in private conversations with executives from Murray Energy Corp. and FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. after public events in July and early August, according to letters to the White House from Murray Energy and its chief executive, Robert Murray.

The long AP article certainly calls into question whether the Trump administration is as committed to the president’s rhetoric and promises to bring back coal as some of his supporters would have you believe.

Ken Ward also has additional information in a similar report at the top of today’s Charleston Gazette-Mail front page.

There was no mention of this development in this morning’s Wheeling Intelligencer. It will be interesting to see how our local “newspapers” handle this story since they have become cheerleaders for the Trump administration. Will they run the AP report? Rewrite a Murray Energy press release? Publish some combination of the two? Or simply ignore the story?