Something you may have picked up on over the course of the 83 years during which Donald Trump has been president is that the guy loves him some coal. His obsession with the U.S.’s leading source of carbon emissions and one of the foremost causes of global climate change appears to stem from a few places: 1) the coal industry appeals both to right-wing industry execs who hate government regulations and to blue-collar miners who make up the president’s base; 2) it offers him an avenue through which to rail against killjoy tree-huggers and their insistence on protecting the environment and human health; and 3) it allows him to live in the past, i.e. when coal wasn’t a dying industry. These factors have led Trump to do things like fill his administration with coal veterans, prop up unprofitable coal plants under the guise of “national security,” and chip away at regulations like the Stream Protection rule, which prevented coal companies from dumping waste in streams—at the ceremony celebrating the stream rule’s abolishment, Trump called coal-industry workers “Special people, special workers,” and promised, “we’re bringing it back and we’re bringing it back fast.” Of course, this is all in spite of the fact that coal isn’t making a comeback, is polluting the air and water, and, according to the American Lung Association, kills 7,500 Americans each year. And now, Trump is poised to let coal plants opt out of regulations altogether.

Politico reports that the White House is poised to unveil a climate-change proposal for coal-burning plants that would essentially allow them to flood the planet with greenhouse gas emissions to their heart’s content. Whereas Obama’s 2015 Clean Power Plan would have “sped a shift away from coal use and toward less-polluting sources such as natural gas, wind and solar,” Trump’s plan would give states free rein to write their own rules for coal plant regulations, or even to obtain permission to opt out of regulations entirely. The current proposal would be “another, more official, sign that the government of the United States is not committed to climate policy,” Janet McCabe, the Environmental Protection Agency’s air chief under Obama, told Politico, which is putting it quite mildly.

Of course, Trump’s E.P.A.—which, under former director Scott Pruitt, associated primarily with coal- and oil-industry executives, many of whom praised Pruitt’s dedication to erasing Obama-era regulations—is claiming this is all about right and wrong, and not simply a transparent attempt to once again prioritize industry profits over human health and the environment. It reportedly intends to argue “that the Obama administration rule illegally sought to regulate the broader power sector, beyond coal plants, and that the compliance costs would have been big and the climate benefits negligible.” While blue states and environmental advocates are already prepared to go to war once the proposal is final, the regulation—or lack thereof—will be a placeholder while legal fights play out, which Politico notes “could stall a future president from regulating power plants.” If “beautiful, clean coal” was hoping for an ally in the White House, Trump may very well have delivered beyond the industry’s wildest dreams.