Once the primary fuel source for the United States and the economic back bone for communities from Appalachia to Wyoming, coal has been on a steady decline since the mid 1990s, and is now at the center of the political debate in the United States.
The political spectrum of the United States is divided on the future of coal and its place in the energy sector. The coal mining industry and the communities that rely on coal have increasingly been pitted against forces who wish to regulate coal to the history books.