Decoder Ring | Making Coal Cute Again

Summary

Slow Burn | Decoder Ring: "Making Coal Cute Again"

Release Date: February 11, 2026
Host: Willa Paskin
Theme: The curious creation and viral journey of “Coley” the coal mascot—how a federal agency’s attempt to explain its mission collided with meme culture, the politics of coal, and public misunderstanding in the Trump era.

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Episode Overview

This episode of Decoder Ring, hosted by Willa Paskin, investigates the unexpected rise of “Coley,” an anthropomorphic lump of coal mascot, which was unleashed upon the Internet as the face of a little-known federal agency. Intended as a friendly educational character explaining environmental reclamation, Coley was instantly swept up into viral controversy and accused of pro-coal propaganda during the Trump administration’s aggressive push to revive coal. Through interviews with agency staff, the mascot’s original creator, environmental policy experts, and analysis of Internet reaction, Paskin traces how a simple internal office joke became a political Rorschach test.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Viral Arrival of “Coley”

• The Social Post ([03:10]–[05:11])
  • Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a Trump appointee, tweets a cartoon image of himself with “Coley,” the googly-eyed piece of coal, captioned to promote “beautiful, clean coal” and American energy dominance.
  • The cartoon features Burgum in a hardhat (“mine, baby, mine”) with his arm around an anthropomorphic lump of coal, decked in bright safety gear.
• Immediate Reception
  • The image goes viral, widely interpreted as coal propaganda, and is both ridiculed and discussed as a government attempt to “make coal cute.”
  • Late-night TV hosts and social media users react with disbelief and mockery.

“They’re trying to make coal cute. With all the toxins and the soot and the emissions. Who is this for?”
—Nitish Pahwa, energy reporter ([05:30])

2. Trump Era Politics and Internet Meme Tactics

• Coal Policy Context ([06:08]–[06:39])
  • Trump administration aggressively supports fossil fuels, keeps coal mines open, relaxes safety and environmental regulations.
  • The phrase “beautiful clean coal” is a deliberate messaging tactic.
• Meme-Style Communication ([07:01]–[08:38])
  • The administration leans into highly online, provocative, meme-based content (“posting these horrendous images... to trigger the libs”).
  • The viral launch of Coley fits this playbook.

3. Who is OSMRE and What’s Their Actual Mission?

• Introduction to OSMRE ([13:14]–[16:24])
  • OSMRE = Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, a small bureau within the Department of the Interior.
  • Tasked not with promoting coal, but with regulating mining operations and, crucially, restoring/reclaiming abandoned mine sites.
  • Since 1977, OSMRE’s role has been to mitigate environmental damage and fund reclamation projects, not to encourage coal extraction.

“Under SMCRA, the legislation that created OSMRE... we are not permitted to promote or advocate for coal mining.”
—Simone Randolph, Director of Communications, OSMRE ([18:32], [19:00])

4. Origins of “Coley” – An In-Joke Gone Public

• Creation Story ([19:13]–[22:36])
  • Invented in 2018 by Sarah Eckert, then an OSMRE communications staffer, as an internal office mascot inspired by “Clippy” from Microsoft Word.
  • Initially just a joke (coal+eyes=tape to the wall) amongst a handful of employees; expanded to motivational office messages and in-jokes.
  • Over time, the character was refined (hard hat, gloves, slogans), but intended as a friendly face for cleaning up mine lands.

“Probably took about 45 seconds of me copying into a Word document and printing him out, and there he was.”
—Sarah Eckert, originator of Coley ([21:04])

5. When and Why Take Coley Public?

• A Mascot with a Mission ([24:22]–[26:53])
  • The infrastructure law’s boost in OSMRE funding (2021) provided an opportunity to explain to the public what the agency does.
  • Strategy: Use Coley to build awareness, trust, and accountability—make dull regulatory work approachable.
  • Inspiration drawn from cultural touchstones like “Schoolhouse Rock” and Japanese utility mascots.

“Coley can talk in an informal way... If you’re just speaking from OSMRE, like, ‘publish this final rule’—that’s kind of boring.”
—Simone Randolph ([25:31])

6. From Cute Educator to Controversial Meme

• The Rollout and Viral Uproar ([30:24]–[34:24])
  • Coley debuts on OSMRE’s website with educational graphics about mine reclamation and community investment.
  • However, the viral Burgum tweet, with added “mine, baby, mine” slogan and pro-coal overtones, becomes the public face, divorced from Coley’s origins.
  • The intent and interpretation diverge; the agency is alarmed by the public reading of Coley as coal industry cheerleader.

“I was honestly quite shocked. I felt a little bit uncomfortable, to be honest... That had never been my perspective of what OSM does.”
—Sarah Eckert ([32:30])

7. Expert and Media Backlash

• Satire and Skepticism
  • Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert feature Coley, mocking both the idea of “clean coal” and the attempt to kid-ify a deadly industry ([33:26]–[35:02]).
• Policy Critique ([35:24]–[37:50])
  • Leah Stokes (UC Santa Barbara):
    “I think propaganda. That’s what I’d say... Coal kills people. It’s pretty strange to pretend like something that is deadly is actually kind of cute and fun and maybe really nice and sweet and good.”
  • Mascot compared unfavorably to harmful advertising icons of the past (Joe Camel, for cigarettes).

8. How Did the Rollout Go Wrong? Internal vs. External Messaging

• What Was Intended vs. What Happened ([37:50]–[41:52])
  • Simone Randolph reveals that the viral image and messaging (“mine, baby, mine”) came not from OSMRE, but were tweaked by Interior’s comms team in pursuit of greater reach and administration approval.
  • Coley’s story becomes a tale of misappropriation: an agency seeking positive attention gets swept up in a wider, unintentionally politicized narrative.

“Our original design... they weren’t cleaning up or creating a mine site. They were just standing at a site.”
—Simone Randolph ([40:27])

9. Questions of Agency, Context, and Audience

• External Political Pressures
  • OSMRE has faced staff and regulatory cuts under Trump; viral success under the wrong message complicates the agency’s mission clarity.
• Does the Attention Help or Hurt?
  • Simone hopes attention opens doors for real public education, but worries about hijacked narrative; welcomes tough questions ([44:43]).
• Meta-Success of Coley
  • Coley arguably fulfilled his mission in raising awareness—even if through controversy—about OSMRE’s work and the complexities of energy politics.

“From my perspective, from a communications standpoint, I would call that a win.”
—Simone Randolph ([44:00])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

(Speaker Attribution & Timestamp in MM:SS)

• “They’re trying to make coal cute... Who is this for?”
  —Nitish Pahwa, energy reporter, ([05:30])

• “Under SMCRA...we are not permitted to promote or advocate for coal mining.”
  —Simone Randolph, OSMRE, ([18:32])

• “Probably took about 45 seconds... copied into a Word document and printed him out, and there he was.”
  —Sarah Eckert, original Coley creator, ([21:04])

• “Coley can talk in an informal way. He can be conversational... if you’re just speaking from OSMRE, ‘publish this final rule’—that’s kind of boring.”
  —Simone Randolph, ([25:31])

• “I think propaganda. That’s what I’d say... Coal kills people.”
  —Leah Stokes, professor and policy expert, ([35:24])

• “That had never been my perspective of what OSM does... our mission [is] to ensure responsible mining practices and cleanup, not to be driving coal.”
  —Sarah Eckert, ([32:30])

• “From my perspective, from a communications standpoint, I’d call that a win.”
  —Simone Randolph, ([44:00])

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Key Timestamps

• 02:57–05:11: Viral tweet with Coley and Burgum, initial confusion and reaction
• 13:14–16:24: Intro to OSMRE, its real mission and scope
• 19:13–22:36: Office birth of Coley, as internal mascot and motivational in-joke
• 24:22–26:53: Strategy behind making Coley public—education, trust, “Schoolhouse Rock” analogy
• 30:24–34:24: Coley’s surprise public debut, misinterpretations, and emotional reactions
• 35:24–37:50: Critique by policy expert Leah Stokes; moral tension in making “coal cute”
• 37:50–41:52: How communication and design decisions diverged, agency vs. administration
• 44:00–45:14: OSMRE’s view on attention vs. mission clarity, future plans for Coley

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Conclusion

“Making Coal Cute Again” deftly untangles how a quirky internal mascot became a viral flashpoint in the national debate over energy, propaganda, and communication. Through the story of Coley, the podcast exposes the unintended consequences and cultural volatility that result when good-natured public servants, meme-happy political operatives, and an Internet primed for outrage collide.

Bottom line: Coley unintentionally succeeded—“raising awareness” of OSMRE, perhaps—but also illustrates the dangers of messaging being hijacked and the fine line between education and propaganda. The fate of Coley, and of national attitudes toward coal and government communication, remains very much up in the air.

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For further listening/reading:

• Full episode and transcript available on Slate’s Decoder Ring page
• Leah Stokes’ podcast: A Matter of Degrees
• OSMRE’s website for the direct educational materials featuring Coley

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Willa Paskin]

Hi, it's Willa. Before we get to today's episode, I wanted to let you know that we've just released the next installment of the brand new feature we're calling Decoder Rings Back. On Decoder Rings Back, I call up a listener and try my best to satisfactorily answer a question they've shared with us. This week I spoke with our listener, Susan, about the origins and staying power of a ubiquitous baby blanket.

[Host/Commentator]

I was watching the Pit, like I guess everyone else in America these days, an episode where a baby was born. And I noticed that there was a receiving blanket. And I was thinking, I know that blanket from somewhere. And then I realized the hospitals where I gave birth to my kids, they. They use the same blanket. And my question was, why does somebody have a monopoly on receiving blankets in hospitals? Why is that blanket always there?

[Willa Paskin]

That episode of Dakota Rings Back is out right now, but it's only for Slate plus members. If you are not yet a Slate plus member, you can join by going to the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or or Spotify. Or you can visit slate.com decoder becoming a Slate member instrumentally supports the work that we do. You also get to listen to our show and all of Slate's shows without any ads. And you'll get to hear if we happen to ring you back for a future installment of Decoder Rings Back. So please sign up now. On with the show, foreign. Colleague Nitish Pahwa, who writes about energy and climate change, among other things, was looking at X as he often does for work.

[Host/Commentator]

Yeah, I was just scrolling, minding my own business, when I all of a sudden just see a post from our Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum. I'm just looking at this. I'm gobsmacked.

[Willa Paskin]

Burgum, a businessman and the former governor of North Dakota, was appointed Secretary of the Interior by Donald Trump in 2025. That's the Cabinet position that oversees all federal land and natural resources, including agencies like the Bureau of Indian affairs and the National Park Service.

[Host/Commentator]

If Interior was a standalone company, it.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Would have the largest balance sheet in the world. No one else would even come close.

[Host/Commentator]

To this just incredible bounty of public.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Lands that America holds.

[Willa Paskin]

Burgum has about 110,000 followers on X, and his account typically shares news clips of Trump and links to initiatives pushing America's energy dominance agenda. This particular tweet looked a little different.

[Host/Commentator]

You see Burgum, a cartoon of him kneeling down at a coal plant. There is a hard hat on Mr. Burgum's head that says mine, baby, mine. And he's got his arm around like getting all buddy buddy with like this giant lump of coal with big, like googly eyes.

[Willa Paskin]

Picture a gray and black rectangle of coal that's tapered a bit at the top with two big emoji looking eyes on it. There are little pink circles underneath those eyes and it has a smudge of a nose. It's wearing Mickey Mouse style white gloves and it has a safety vest and a hard hat and boots that, that are all bright yellow. If one were trying to make coal adorable, this is what you'd do. It's like the baby animal version of a piece of coal. And the cartoon version of Doug Burgum has his arm draped around it.

[Host/Commentator]

And the caption of the post is talking about how the president has made it a top priority for Interior to unleash beautiful, clean coal. And the OSMRE department is leading the charge. They've got a new mascot. It's named Coaly the lump of coal. You know, with an ie at the end.

[Willa Paskin]

You know how little kids name their stuffed animals Tygy, Owly, Cowie? It's like that but for a lump of coal. Coaly. The Internet is full of things that are tailor made to inspire some kind of strong reaction. Tish is used to that with we all are. But he reacted to Coley anyway.

[Host/Commentator]

Yeah, I'm just sitting here staring at this for A full on minute because I kind of can't believe what I'm beholding. They're trying to make Cole cute. With all the toxins and the soot and the emissions. They're trying to make it appeal to, I guess, kids I like. Who, who is this for?

[Willa Paskin]

But as Tish kept looking at Coley, he had enough context to at least start to make some sense of it. First off, he is well aware of the Trump administration's position on coal.

[Host/Commentator]

The whole entire Trump administration's thing has been to really just like destroy renewable green energy in whatever form it exists, take away all sorts of like government supports and initiatives for it, and replace it with like an insistence on fossil fuels. I call it beautiful clean coal. I tell my people never use the word coal unless you put beautiful clean before it. Right, Doc? So we call it beautiful clean coal. Beautiful clean coal.

[Willa Paskin]

The Trump administration has also aggressively pursued more coal mining, but by doing everything from forcing old mines to stay open to loosening safety regulations. So that's the first thing Tish was thinking about. The administration is all in on coal. And then there's the second thing the administration is all in on. Memes.

[Host/Commentator]

The Trump administration's social media strategy has been basically to adopt like a typical, like 4chan forum and just transmute that as official government policy, posting these horrendous images of extremely online propaganda to trigger the libs.

[Willa Paskin]

Seemingly every federal department is pumping out images. Memes. Slop. One of the most memorable was a response to the no Kings protests last year. Trump posted an AI video of himself wearing a crown, riding a jet, dumping a brown substance on protesters.

[Host/Commentator]

It clearly was meant to be poop.

[Willa Paskin]

A literal shit post. When Tish saw Coley coming across the social media transom, that's what it seemed like. It was yet another online provocation. And as he added up the Trump administration's coal policy and its love of a potentially viral image, Coley started to make more sense as an unholy mashup of the two.

[Host/Commentator]

Yeah, I'm imagining just like someone in the administration is just bored one day and is like, okay, one of our big initiatives, we're trying to bring back coal. Let me go to like midjourney or one of these tools and say, all right, Secretary Burgum with a cute looking coal mascot with big eyes and like a worker safety outfit. And yeah, it gets the job done.

[Willa Paskin]

What would your ballpark be on how long it took to make?

[Host/Commentator]

I think they definitely refined this thing a few times. Like, you know, they put in a prompt and then, like, said, okay, try it again, but this time, add, you know, the coal sign in the background, add the American flag, add this truck. So I don't know, I'd give it like 12 generations in like, a five minute span.

[Willa Paskin]

So in this tweet that we've been talking about in the text, there is a federal agency that's mentioned. Like, Coley is supposed to be that agency's mascot. And that agency is called osmre.

[Host/Commentator]

Right.

[Willa Paskin]

Based on this picture of Coley, what would you think that OSMRE does?

[Host/Commentator]

I would assume that OSMRE is trying to destroy every mountain in existence to see if there's coal lurking under the peak.

[Willa Paskin]

But maybe the strangest thing about Coley, the adorable lump of coal, is that digging up more coal is not the mission of the agency that created him at all. This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. When Coley first appeared on the Internet a few weeks ago, he. He went viral. Ridiculed on social media, in newsletters, and even on late night talk shows. And that's because this big eyed, cute piece of coal embracing a man wearing a mine baby mine hard hat was immediately and widely understood to be some kind of coal propaganda. A mascot meant to promote more coal mining and soften the coal industry's image. Frankly, when I first saw him, that's what I thought he was too. But even so, I was intrigued. How does something like Coley come to exist? Who puts effort into making him and why? The answers to these questions were not at all what I assumed them to be. Coley absolutely is entangled with the Trump administration's commitment to coal. But Coley's origins and intended purposes also tell a story about what it's like for federal agencies and employees to try to do their work while navigating that administration. Coley may widely be seen as a mascot for coal mining, but that's not what he was made for. So today on Decoder Ring, who's trying to make coal cute?

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[Host/Commentator]

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[Sarah Eckert]

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[Host/Commentator]

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[Willa Paskin]

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[Sarah Eckert]

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[Simone Randolph]

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[Willa Paskin]

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[Host/Commentator]

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[Willa Paskin]

Looking at the picture of Coley that went around the Internet, I assumed it originated with someone really invested in digging for coal. But I had never heard of osmre, the agency credited with creating him. And I'm probably not alone. Is it fair to say that, like your average American, would we be likely to have heard of osmr?

[Simone Randolph]

I'm gonna go with most likely not.

[Willa Paskin]

Simone Randolph is the director of communications for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, the birthplace of Coley.

[Simone Randolph]

We are a very small bureau within the department. I mean, it's fair to say that many employees, even within the Department of the Interior, might not fully know what OSMRE does.

[Willa Paskin]

And what OSMRE does is not what I expected.

[Simone Randolph]

We oversee active coal mining operations to ensure that it complies with federal law. And second, we provide funding to states and tribes so that they can reclaim and restore abandoned mine lands.

[Willa Paskin]

Fifty years ago, there was no federal agency tasked with overseeing the mining industry or cleaning up after it.

[Simone Randolph]

Prior to 1977, there weren't laws on the books that required coal operators to do anything. So if they were done with a mine, they could leave and they didn't have to clean up the site or stabilize any of the land or make sure that what they were leaving behind didn't create some type of danger or hazard to the environment or the people living in the area.

[Willa Paskin]

In the early 1970s, a dam burst in West Virginia coal country, and 130 million gallons of coal waste surged out into the community and killing 125 people. I seen trees, logs, cars, slate, slush. It was five of them in the house.

[Simone Randolph]

They never got out?

[Willa Paskin]

No. They're all gone. Partially. In response, President Carter signed the Surface Mining Control and reclamation act of 1977. It's called SMACRA, Subjecting Mining Companies to stricter environmental regulations.

[Host/Commentator]

The coal industry thinks the new law is too tough. The president said he thought it should be tougher.

[Willa Paskin]

And the agency created to do that regulating was osmre.

[Simone Randolph]

So especially with legacy mine sites, there are serious environmental challenges that need to be addressed. Whether that's acid mine drainage or even having land that is not stable and needs to be reshored. You don't want to have, like, a house or a road fall into a sinkhole. So there's a variety of different ways that we help to support stabilized land and water quality.

[Willa Paskin]

I mean, essentially, it would not be too much of a stretch to say, like, you guys are, like, cleaning up the environment that's been damaged by legacy coal mining.

[Simone Randolph]

Correct.

[Willa Paskin]

OSMRE does oversee active coal mines. It's the agency that is meant to enforce and uphold federal regulations and safety standards. But over the last five decades, Osmre has also transferred over $2 billion into health and retirement funds for the United Mine Workers of America. And it's distributed six and a half billion dollars for reclamation work, turning hazardous old mines into usable land.

[Simone Randolph]

We have provided funding for projects to create recreational trails, restore waterways, create outdoor public spaces, community infrastructure projects like gathering spaces or community centers. You know, Pittsburgh Botanic Garden was created on what was formerly an abandoned mineland. And the Wilds is a safari park in Ohio.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Look at how beautiful this male is. This is a reticulated giraffe.

[Simone Randolph]

And that was actually created on an AML site.

[Willa Paskin]

On September 11 when United Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers took control away from the hijackers. That field happened to be abandoned mine land, too. And OSMRE helped restore it so that.

[Simone Randolph]

It is now a memorial within the National Park Service.

[Willa Paskin]

It's even involved in campaigns for bat conservation.

[Simone Randolph]

Bats? Bats like to live in caves. And a lot of things that bats might think are an underground cave are abandoned mines.

[Willa Paskin]

As we were talking, I assumed Simone was leading with the good stuff the agency does and downplaying the digging for coal that, frankly, Coley himself had made me think was part of the agency's purview. She is the OSMRE spokesperson, after all. But that's not quite what was happening historically. How involved has OSMRE been in promoting coal mining itself?

[Simone Randolph]

So, actually, under smacra, the legislation that created OSMRE and gives us the authority to do our work, we are not permitted to promote or advocate for coal mining. We provide the federal oversight of coal mining operations. And that is the extent, like, you're.

[Willa Paskin]

Literally, officially not allowed to promote coal mining.

[Simone Randolph]

Correct.

[Willa Paskin]

So how did an agency that is legally prohibited from promoting coal mining end up connected to a mascot that people think is doing just that?

[Sarah Eckert]

Okay, so it's been a while. It's been a while since Coley came into this world, if you will. But we were all hanging out full on goofballing in the office.

[Willa Paskin]

Sarah Ecker is a communications coordinator for an engineering company. But back in 2018, she was working in communications for Osmre, which had just moved into a nice new office at the main Interior department building in D.C.

[Sarah Eckert]

But the problem with brand new offices is they're super sterile. And so we needed to spice things up to spruce it up. We decided that we needed a mascot for our office because, you know, the National Park Service has the bison, and you got the Fish and Wildlife Service at Interior, and we're like, well, they have, like, really great branding. Everyone knows who they are.

[Willa Paskin]

Sarah thought OSM could use a mascot too. And all she had to do was look around to see what it might be. Coal.

[Sarah Eckert]

It's everywhere in the office. I mean, you can't get around it. People had coal on their desks. They had other artifacts from coal mines. We would have coal from different states, different types of coal. It's who we are. Office of surface mining. And that's coal.

[Willa Paskin]

But how to turn coal into a mascot? Sarah had a model in mind.

[Sarah Eckert]

I thought very much along the lines of the old school Clippy from early Microsoft Office days. Microsoft Word. An added feature to Word 97 is the Office assistant, which is a cartoon character that gives users guidance and suggestions. Flippy, who would just show up whenever you opened a document to type. So very much just an icon with eyes.

[Willa Paskin]

So she googled Cole clip art and then clip art eyes and pasted both into a document.

[Sarah Eckert]

Probably took about 45 seconds of me copying into a Word document and printing him out, and there he was.

[Willa Paskin]

Sarah and her office mates dubbed her creation Coley. He didn't have any other features. He was just a lump of coal with eyes on a sheet of paper. She put him on the wall behind her.

[Sarah Eckert]

Yeah, just piece of tape and that's how we started.

[Willa Paskin]

When you put him up, were you like, hey, everybody, I'm putting up Coley, or was the kind of thing like people would walk in and be like, wait, what's that?

[Sarah Eckert]

It was definitely something that wasn't initially explained.

[Willa Paskin]

Early on, Coley was an in joke only within the handful of offices adjoining Sarah's. It was neither intended to be pro nor anti coal mining. It was just coal, what they dealt with every day.

[Sarah Eckert]

Maybe five or six people are in on it at first. And slowly, friends from other parts of OSM would come in to visit. They would see this piece of coal with eyes, and that would just start the conversation. It's like, yep, that's Coley. We decided that we needed a mascot, and here he is. You know, we'd print out some more Coley so everyone could have their own Coley as well.

[Willa Paskin]

And so slowly, Coley started to spread.

[Sarah Eckert]

And we would just use Coley to kind of share messages in the office. So we had a whiteboard on our door, and so Coley made it to the whiteboard, and then we could write things around Coley. Happy National Donut day, things like that. Welcome to the communications office. Very motivating things, I will say. Coley was always like, keep going, you're doing great.

[Willa Paskin]

Coley was now beyond just the communications office and into other parts of Osmre. Even after Sarah left her job there in 2020, his presence kept on growing among staff, some of whom began to evolve his appearance beyond just a lump of coal with eyes.

[Simone Randolph]

He got some hands. He got a hard hat.

[Willa Paskin]

When Simone Randolph became lead digital media strategist at OSM in 2020, Coley was already well established.

[Simone Randolph]

Staff started to share him with slogans like, only you can reclaim AML or only you can prevent mind hazards with, like, smokey the bear vibes.

[Willa Paskin]

So at this point, not supposed to be like, related to digging up coal. It's like an inspirational character for cleaning up coal.

[Simone Randolph]

Yeah. And as he became a more lovable and prominent presence within our office, we started talking about, well, what if we brought Coley public?

[Willa Paskin]

It was now 2021. A new administration had begun, and President Biden had just signed his $1.2 trillion infrastructure investment and job.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Today we're finally getting this done. So my message to the American people is this. America's moving again, and your life is going to change for the better.

[Willa Paskin]

In addition to providing funds for roads, bridges, public transit, broadband, and electric vehicle infrastructure, among many other things, The act provided $11 billion in funding to OSMRE to apportion out over the next 15 years. It felt like an opportune time to get the word out to the public about what they actually do.

[Simone Randolph]

The question has always been, how do we tell our story? We do good work. How do we get it out there? And so we thought, what if we do something a little different? And Coley would definitely be a little different.

[Willa Paskin]

Coley would become the agency's approachable, accessible, adorable spokesperson. This kind of thing has been tried before, not just by American agencies with relatively serious mascots, but other countries too. Japan in particular is famous for having hundreds of successful popular mascots for cities and utilities. Happy, Kumamong. Kumamon.

[Host/Commentator]

Go.

[Willa Paskin]

It's me. Hello.

[Simone Randolph]

Hello, Hello.

[Willa Paskin]

These mascots are often very cute. The most successful is a red cheeked bear who represents the Kumamoto prefecture. And they make seemingly dull work interesting to the public, much like the cultural reference Simone herself had in mind.

[Simone Randolph]

Schoolhouse Rock, you know, the I'm just a Bill character.

[Host/Commentator]

I'm just a Bill. Yes. I'm only a bill and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.

[Simone Randolph]

Coley can talk in an informal way. He can be conversational. He can do things and share content in a way that if you're just speaking from the perspective of osmre, publish this final rule. Like, that's kind of boring.

[Willa Paskin]

Just, just sort of big picture. Why is it important for something like OSMRE to be better known to the like? Why do you need more people to know about what you do?

[Simone Randolph]

I think a lot of people wonder what happens with their tax dollars when money goes to these bureaus that you've never heard of before. It's easy to wonder what's actually happening. And my hope is that when people see that good work, there's, there's more trust in the agency and there's more confidence that where their federal tax dollars are going is making a meaningful difference, not only in just specific coal communities, but for the American people.

[Willa Paskin]

Like you're, you're making like the government works and we want to show people the government works point here.

[Simone Randolph]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I would like to believe that if people knew about this kind of work, they would be proud of the type of work that their tax dollars are supporting.

[Willa Paskin]

This is why Simone wanted to make Coley public. But at the time, the early 2000s, it just didn't come to pass. Simone says they didn't have the staff or the design support to make it happen. And when she left for another job in 2022, the momentum petered out.

[Simone Randolph]

There was always kind of the idea in the back of the mind of maybe Coley goes public one day. But there wasn't necessarily someone driving that.

[Willa Paskin]

Years passed, elections were held. A new administration came into the White House, one with a very strong opinion about coal. A new secretary of the Department of the Interior was appointed, Doug Burgum.

[Host/Commentator]

You know, when President Trump, you know, talks about drill, baby, drill, we've also.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Got a mind baby mine.

[Host/Commentator]

We've got to get back into this business. We've effectively regulated this entire industry out of existence. That's, that's turning around.

[Willa Paskin]

All the while, Coley remained OSMRE internal, an office only mascot. And then just a few months ago, Simone came back to her old job at osmre and she thought maybe now was the time to make Coley happen.

[Simone Randolph]

Today we have a leadership team up to the upper leadership, even in the Department of the Interior that really supports taking bold risks, creative thinking, that no idea is too silly. And so I went, what's that saying? You miss every shot you don't shoot. And so I shot my shot and was like, hey, we've, we've got this thing and his name is Coley. And I think it would be fun if we shared him with the public and leadership was on board. They were like, yep, what do you need? Let's make it happen.

[Willa Paskin]

With the green light, OSMRE got to work refining Coley's look even more with a professional design team, giving him a glow up, prepping him to be animated.

[Simone Randolph]

They've built him out in vectors and he can have hats and boots and talk, move his mouth, wave his arms, walk around.

[Willa Paskin]

Over the course of a few weeks in the new year, they also put together the materials necessary for his rollout. Social images and a web story.

[Simone Randolph]

And then he went live.

[Willa Paskin]

Coley hits the Internet. When we come back.

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[Willa Paskin]

A few weeks ago, Sarah Eckert, the woman who originally conceived of Coley and printed him out, got a text from her old boss, another former OSMRE employee.

[Sarah Eckert]

With a link to an article. And he goes, wait a second, weren't you Coley? Because Coley's here.

[Willa Paskin]

There was Coley on A page called 10 Things to Know about how OSMRE supports America's Energy, legacy and Communities.

[Sarah Eckert]

It just made me smile a little bit. That was the first time I even had thought about Coley, probably in five years. It's like, wait, you actually made it into prime time. What is happening?

[Willa Paskin]

The webpage Sarah was looking at, which you can find on osmre's website, is nothing flashy. In fairly simple language, it goes point by point through what the agency does. Like number one, we oversee active coal mining and restoration of mined land. Number five, we have invested in billions in restoring land and water. Number seven, we support coal miners and their families. Each point is accompanied by a graphic featuring Coley. Like a before and after picture of an abandoned mine, one derelict and dangerous, one cleaned up with Coley standing out front. And there he is waving at the feet of a handsome mining family. And there he also is giving a thumbs up in front of a commercial strip developed in coal country.

[Sarah Eckert]

And I was like, that's exactly kind of what we thought Coley would be.

[Willa Paskin]

Like.

[Sarah Eckert]

This educational. Here's some facts that you should know. Cute little mascot.

[Willa Paskin]

On this page, Coley seemed to be doing exactly what OSMRE had planned. Schoolhouse Rock for surface mining, reclamation. But as the texts from colleagues and friends kept pouring in, Sarah realized this was not the Coley content most people were seeing. Most people were seeing the image we described at the beginning of the show with cartoon secretary Doug Burgum kneeling next to Coley in front of a coal factory. And when Sarah saw that, she felt something different.

[Sarah Eckert]

I was honestly quite shocked. I felt a little bit uncomfortable, to be honest, because I think his helmet says mine, baby mine. And that had never been my perspective of what OSM does and the goal of osm. I worked in Democratic administrations and Republican administrations, and I never saw our mission as to be really driving coal. Rather, I saw the mission as ensuring responsible mining practices and the cleanup of mines. So when I saw that, I thought to myself, I don't know, I don't like that very much. I was a little taken aback.

[Willa Paskin]

And she wasn't the only one.

[Host/Commentator]

The secretary of the interior, this guy, Doug Burgum, he's been working on a PR campaign to push what they call beautiful clean coal with the help of an adorable new mascot. The mascot's name is Coley. Now this is a real thing.

[Willa Paskin]

On January 28th, Jimmy Kimmel dedicated a whole segment to Burgum's post after it started to go viral.

[Host/Commentator]

Hey everybody, it's me, Coley Kimmel.

[Willa Paskin]

Even had someone come out in a full on Coley costume.

[Host/Commentator]

Under our president Donald Trump, coal is back providing clean, affordable energy and jobs. Isn't that great? Okay, great. It would be great, Coley, but I mean, coal is not clean. No offense, but it's dirty and it's environmentally destructive and it's not even cheap. It's actually more expensive than wind and solar. That's not true. Doug Burgum says I'm the cheapest and cleanest.

[Simone Randolph]

I did not expect the scale of attention that we have received.

[Willa Paskin]

Simone Randolph, director of communications at OSMRE.

[Simone Randolph]

Again, I was hoping that we'd get a little bit of engagement, maybe a few followers, that it would be this fun way to introduce a narrator, to share more conversational stories, but I, I did not anticipate the. The scale of attention that we've received.

[Willa Paskin]

And to be clear, it's not just Jimmy Kimmel. Coley made an appearance on the Late show with Stephen Colbert next to an adorable mascot of black lung disease. He's been talked about in news stories, newsletters, podcasts, and the coverage has been pretty uniformly negative. When you see Coley, what do you think?

[Leah Stokes]

I think propaganda. That's what I'd say.

[Willa Paskin]

Leah Stokes is a professor at UC Santa Barbara where she works on climate and clean energy policy. And she reacted strongly to Coley.

[Leah Stokes]

You know, it's part of both a cultural but also a material effort to keep coal going. Trying to make coal great again. It's trying to revive a dying industry.

[Willa Paskin]

I mean, like, why is it preposterous for coal to have a mascot?

[Leah Stokes]

Well, coal kills people. So it's pretty strange to pretend like something that is deadly is actually kind of cute and fun and maybe really nice and sweet and good.

[Host/Commentator]

Pound for pound, coal is the single most reliable, durable, secure and powerful form of energy there is on earth today. So big statement. You never hear those statements.

[Simone Randolph]

You know, the reality is that coal.

[Leah Stokes]

Is a really dirty energy source. And I think it's pretty telling that the Trump administration, of all the energy sources they could pick, chose coal to make into a cartoon. A friendly neighborhood character that you might see on tv.

[Willa Paskin]

Leah is not opposed to the idea of mascots for inanimate public utilities in general. Early in her career, she herself commissioned a cartoon version of a power plant to help explain what powered a municipal electrical system. But making Cole, in particular a mascot strikes her as uniquely ill conceived.

[Leah Stokes]

It's like wildfires. A mascot. You know, I mean, for wildfires, we literally have Smokey the bear being like, please do not start wildfires.

[Willa Paskin]

That's the mascot.

[Leah Stokes]

It's for not doing the bad thing. And now we somehow thought we should have a mascot for the bad thing that kills people. It's sort of like cigarettes. Imagine if we had, like, I don't know, Smokey the cigarette. And like.

[Willa Paskin]

Well, in fact, we did. It was a Camel. I mean, Joe Camel's like, it's like a notoriously horrible example. Example of using something cute to market something that kills people.

[Leah Stokes]

Exactly.

[Willa Paskin]

And we outlaw Joe Camel.

[Leah Stokes]

So there you go. You know, why didn't they pick a solar panel? You know, why didn't they pick a wind turbine? Where Solely or windy Wendy's kind of funny.

[Willa Paskin]

Where's the.

[Leah Stokes]

Where's the battery?

[Willa Paskin]

I don't know.

[Leah Stokes]

If you want to make cartoon characters about the clean energy system, there are other energy sources that you could turn into icons, so to speak. But Doug Burgum with a mind baby mine hard hat, like, that was a choice.

[Willa Paskin]

So how did that choice get made? The hat in particular, along with the caption in the tweet crowing about OSMRE advancing the American energy dominance agenda and beautiful clean coal are what have made Coley seem to be so pro. Coal mining and everything else about coaly aside, you know, enough now to understand that's all pretty far from osmra's mission of regulation and reclamation and from the other Coley materials that OSMRE developed. And standing next to Burgum, Coley's design even looks different. It has little pink cheeks, which aren't in the original. I asked Simone what happened. So there's the materials you guys worked on about, like, you know, what OSMRE does. And then there's like, the tweet that, like, the image that went out on the secretary, like, Facebook, like, when does that come into play? Like, when did you realize you needed.

[Simone Randolph]

To do that launching on the secretary's account?

[Willa Paskin]

Yeah.

[Simone Randolph]

So that was actually a part of my initial pitch. I knew that our engagement, our followership, it's not a huge reach. And I knew that if we launched Coley on our platforms alone, that nobody would really notice. And so I requested that Coley be shared on this, the secretary's platform, that he be introduced in that way, and then we take ownership of Coley and use him as our spokesperson.

[Willa Paskin]

It was also at Simone's request that Coley be pictured next to a cartoon version of Doug Burgum, because cartoon Doug is actually a character the Department of the Interior had already been using elsewhere.

[Simone Randolph]

And the department liked that idea. We had suggested that they be at a mine site, but then the Department made some tweaks to what that image looked like.

[Willa Paskin]

What did the image look like when you proposed?

[Simone Randolph]

Was similar in that Doug and Coley were kind of hugging and they've got their little hats on. But some of the text and other illustrations were changed. Our initial idea did have them still at a mine site with an American flag, so it wasn't a lot of change. But there were some specific illustrations that were tweaked.

[Willa Paskin]

I mean, in your original proposal, was the implication that Doug and Coley were cleaning up a mining site, and now the implication is they are about to make a mining site.

[Simone Randolph]

In our original design, they weren't cleaning up or creating a mine site. They were just standing out of sight.

[Willa Paskin]

And was the text mind baby mine involved in that original proposal in any way?

[Simone Randolph]

No.

[Willa Paskin]

The image that ultimately went out was not created by osmre's design team. The Department of the Interior made it. And if they used AI to generate it, Simone doesn't know. One of the other interesting things happening in all of this is that osmre, like seemingly every other federal agency, has been slashed by the Trump administration, going from 412 employees to 262. The administration has also cut back on coal regulations that OSMRE is used to enforce. In that climate, it might seem expedient for a government agency to get a meme blessed by the administration to go viral, even if it's for the wrong cause. I wondered if all of this might change how someone like Leah Stokes sees Coley. Do you think it's relevant in the context of Coley specifically, that he was created by an agency, osmre, that is largely dedicated to cleaning up abandoned mining sites, like that has been historically their work?

[Leah Stokes]

Yeah, there's great people who work in the federal government under Trump. There's fantastic. Civil servants who are still in there bless them, and they're doing good work, like reclamation, you know, cleaning up places where coal was extracted and trying to return it to some kind of pre, you know, pre mining state. I understand that they are the ones who created this, and I'm sure that the people who did it probably had good intentions. But why did it get greenlit? You know, why is it on social media and going viral? It's because it fits within the regime's interest, which is to pretend like coal is a clean thing and a good thing, and to try to sell it like propaganda to the American people.

[Willa Paskin]

The fact is, Coley is a cute piece of coal. And there's something inherently perverse about making something so harmful to people and the environment. Adorable. OSMRE could have a mascot that makes more sense for its mission. Forget a solar panel. How about a shovel or a coal miner? But those would not have appealed at all to an administration devoted to burning coal and burnishing its image. Even if that's not Coley's stated purpose.

[Simone Randolph]

Coley is not intended to make Cole cute. Simone Randolph Again, Coley is our way of being able to explain OSMRES mission in an approachable, easier to understand way. And so at the end of the day, that is as not to cutify coal, but to tell the story on the ways that we are ensuring that coal mining operations protect the people and the environment, that land is restored to beneficial use, and that the impacts of legacy mining are addressed through reclamation.

[Willa Paskin]

There obviously seems to be quite like a sort of fairly large, like, disjuncture between what OSMRE does and the most public rollout of Coley. I mean, what am I to make of that?

[Simone Randolph]

Our goal has always been to offer a character that can function across numerous formats that can be attention grabbing. And certainly how Coley was rolled out grabbed some attention. So from my perspective, from a communications standpoint, I. I would call that a win.

[Willa Paskin]

Are you concerned that there is a possibility that Coley's, like, kind of incredible success at getting attention will actually sort of interfere with communicating about what OSMRE actually does?

[Simone Randolph]

Like, are we concerned that the intention outweighs his ability to actually communicate? My hope is no. I think that it opens the door to have these conversations. And if people have questions about the work that we're doing and what that intent is, then I welcome those questions and I look forward to sharing with them about what OSM actually does and why it matters.

[Willa Paskin]

OSM plans to have Coley share some of that information himself. The agency is using Coley to collaborate with various other agencies, including an appearance with the Park Service to celebrate Black History Month. And other future materials won't just use Coley's image, but his voice.

[Host/Commentator]

Hey, I'm Coley. Yes, I'm Cole, but don't scroll away just yet.

[Willa Paskin]

Simone shared a sample of how Coley sounds with us.

[Host/Commentator]

Before today, you might have thought about coal, but chances are you haven't heard much about osmre. That's the Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement, or the work it takes to help protect coal communities and reclaim abandoned mine lands. Those stories don't often make headlines, but they should, because this work makes a real difference for the American people.

[Willa Paskin]

In materials like this, as opposed to the Burgum tweet, Coley does seem to be comporting himself in accordance with osmre's original goal. But in the three weeks since his release to the public, it seems to me the story Coley has most successfully told is the one about the pro coal agenda of the federal government, not the one about the workings of a small federal agency. Still, though, there is the fact that I saw Coley became extraordinarily curious about how something so wrongheaded had come to exist. And now I know a lot more about osmre, and so do you in this regard. Coley worked as Simone hoped it would, though it remains to be seen whether that translates into greater awareness of osmre, let alone protection for the work that it does. If Coley goes down, like if Coley is remembered, if Coley becomes an icon of trying to make coal happen, like if. Of, like, you know, mine, baby mine. Instead of a mascot for osmre, of like, Responsible Land Management. Like, is Coley a failure?

[Simone Randolph]

Only time will tell. Oh gosh, that's a hard question. Maybe this sounds a little silly to say, but I. I believe in Coley. I think he's going to do a good job.

[Willa Paskin]

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. If you aren't a Slate plus member, please consider becoming one. You can subscribe now from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or visit slate.com decoder ring+ to get access. Wherever you listen, Slate+ members get to hear our show and every other Slate podcast without any ads. And once again, you can listen to our brand new installment of Decoder Rings Back, which is out now. This episode was written by me and Evan Chung, our supervising producer, who also produced this episode. Decoder Ring is also produced by Katie Shepard. And Max Friedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Thank you to Daniel Ramey, Tony Ho Tran, and Hannah Northy. Leah Stokes has written a number of books about energy, including the forthcoming the Carbon Wave. I encourage you to seek them out. She also co hosts the podcast A Matter of Degrees. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at decoderinglate.com or call us at 347-460-7281. We love hearing from you and we'll see you in two weeks.

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