The federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement has a new mascot straight out of South Park.
Coalie, the big-eyed lump of cartoon coal, debuted this January in a digital ad campaign with U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. The first cartoonified image of the two appeared on social media accounts like Count On Coal, where Burgum wears a white hard hat emblazoned with the slogan, “Mine, Baby, Mine.”
Writes Burgum on X, “@POTUS made it a top priority for @Interior to unleash Beautiful, Clean Coal and @OSMRE is leading the charge!”
Coalie arrives as the federal government is doubling down on fossil fuels and foresting while slashing deep into renewable energy grants and research.
Earlier this week National Laboratory of the Rockies, once known as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, cut another 134 jobs from its main hub in Golden. The Denver Post confirms the news, on top of 114 jobs already cut there this past spring.
In Sept. 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy committed $625 million to “reinvigorate and expand” U.S. coal mining. Earlier last year, public land managers like the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service were told to
Xcel Energy, the largest energy utility in Colorado, remains committed to new green energy projects, according to the Colorado Sun, but likely at a steep cost for consumers. Renewable energy grants are disappearing, and with them, interest in green energy initiatives like solar, wind and electric vehicles, which Fox News attributed to rising costs.
State Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat, is celebrating a bipartisan bill made to protect Colorado coal miners who lost their jobs.