Pruitt also lauded the decision to repeal Clean Power Plan, a signature regulatory program to curb emissions from coal-fired power plants passed by Obama, which he called a “war on coal.”

“It was a real war,” he said. “And the president said the war is over. And that’s what I was there to announce to those folks there. As a regulator you shouldn’t engage in any war in any sector of the economy.”

Last year, U.S. coal production reached a record low since 1978, but 2017 has signaled a turnaround for the industry. The nation’s coal output fell about 10% in 2015 and 17% in 2016, according to the Energy Information Administration. But during the first eight months of 2017, production levels rose by 14%.

The Trump administration’s’ decision to roll back the Obama-era policy could save 240 million tons of annual coal production, in addition to protect more than 27,000 mining jobs and the nearly 100,000 indirect jobs that rely on coal.

Restrictions put in place by President Obama’s administration not only hurt an already depressed coal industry, but failed to improve the environmental outcome that it purported to save, Pruitt said.

“From a mining sector perspective,” he said, “They would say to you it’s not just competition in the marketplace, it was the availed purpose by the previous administration to place burdens and restrictions on them that did not improve environmental outcome, but increased burden.”