Not So Fast

“Not So Fast” is a coal industry-backed public relations campaign that advocates for the continued use of coal and against transitioning to cleaner sources of electricity. 

Not So Fast was launched by Consol Energy at the end of 2023. A company press release said the campaign “aims to inform the public, corporate leadership, and U.S. policymakers about the economic and societal repercussions of rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels such as coal to intermittent sources like wind and solar power.”

At the time, President Joe Biden had set a goal for the U.S. to decarbonize its electricity system by 2035, a goal that Donald Trump abandoned upon his return to the White House in 2025. The coal industry has known since the 1960s that the threat posed by climate change could result in regulation of carbon dioxide emissions, including from power plants that burn coal and other fossil fuels. 

The campaign is currently sponsored by Core Natural Resources, the coal mining company that formed from the merger of Consol Energy and Arch Resources in 2025. In the first quarter of 2024, Core Natural Resources attributed a $4 million increase in quarterly administrative spending primarily to the Not So Fast campaign and made the campaign’s rollout a performance metric when determining short-term incentive compensation for top executives in 2024, according to SEC filings. 

Jimmy Brock, the chairman of Core Natural Resources and former CEO of Consol Energy, has played an active role in promoting the campaign and received $1.8 million in short-term incentive compensation for 2024. Brock has also served as the chairman of America’s Power, the industry group formerly known as the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, according to annual tax reports. 

Not So Fast purchases ads on Facebook and Google platforms like YouTube promoting coal-fired electricity generation and attacking renewables. In particular, the group attacks renewable energy for requiring more land for energy production than fossil fuels, a common talking point from fossil fuel-backed groups that has found favor with the Trump administration but does not take supply chains and the land required to extract and transport fossil fuels, which can require more land than renewables, into account. 

The campaign’s website — coalhardtruth.com — includes a “Policymaker’s Issue Kit” that provides pro-coal and anti-renewables talking points. Not So Fast lists Matt Mackowiak — a Manager of Government Affairs for Core Natural Resources — as the contact for the campaign. Mackowiak attended the signing ceremony for one of President Trump’s Executive Orders intended to bolster US coal production on behalf of Core in April of 2025.