Devashree Saha and Sifan Liu for the Brookings Institution: The “war on coal” is a false narrative that oversimplifies what is happening in the energy economy. In blaming environmental regulations under the Obama administration as the sole reason for the recent turmoil in the coal industry, President-elect Trump and Environmental Protection Agency administrator nominee Scott Pruitt are ignoring fundamental market realities that are buffeting the industry.

A December 2016 Brookings paper shows how the ongoing large-scale switch in the power sector from coal to cheaper and abundant natural gas, a trend driven more by investors and market forces than by environmental regulations, is playing a huge role in states’ increased ability to “decouple” their economic growth from growth in carbon emissions. The natural gas glut has reshaped how we get electricity across the board, with natural gas-fired generation expected to surpass coal generation in the United States for the first time in 2016.