President Donald Trump is taking credit for the opening of a new coal mine in the state of Pennsylvania, even though plans were made for the mine to open "well before his election" and the mine is expected to generate only 100 permanent jobs, according to the Los Angeles Times. Trump called the coal mine the first of the "Trump era" in a tweet.
Corsa Coal Corp decided in August that it would open the Acosta mine, located roughly 60 miles south of the city of Pittsburgh, "after a steel industry boom drove up prices for metallurgical coal," according to the Times.
Trump has been advocating to reverse a decades-long decline in coal mining, and blames job loss in the coal industry on "federal regulations aimed at curbing planet-warming carbon emissions," according to the Times. The central theme of the president's agenda involves dismantling Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, which means gutting the EPA's budget and changing how pollution is measured.
EPA chief Scott Pruitt was nominated after a lobbying campaign coordinated by the notoriously far-right Koch brothers, who are business magnates and top Republican donors. Pruitt has questioned the man-made impact on the climate. Last month, the EPA fired five scientists and replaced them with insiders from the fossil fuel industry.
This certainly isn't the first time Trump has embellished his so-called accomplishments. During his first formal cabinet meeting on Monday, Trump stated that he has accomplished more than any other president — with few exceptions. He has also taken credit for job growth since his inauguration, even though the average monthly gain in jobs is lower under Trump than it was during Barack Obama's final year in office.
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