This essay identifies and analyzes some of the primary rhetorical strategies that have been employed in contemporary coal controversies in the United States. These strategies have emerged from an ongoing research project that analyzes coal rhetoric in the US; in particular, rhetoric focused on mountaintop removal (MTR) in Appalachia. Building on Lange’s (1993) analysis of the mirroring and matching strategies of advocates in the controversy over the spotted owl and logging in the US, the essay discusses three dominant strategies—narrative framing, identity construction, and dueling science—that constitute the logic of controversy over coal extraction, energy production, and climate change. The essay will conclude by discussing how the political economy of environmental controversy opens and closes opportunities for using these strategies to affect deliberation about the future of coal.