The "war on..." expression is usually a reference to attempts, often through governmental authority, to force a change (or prevent one in some cases) in an industry/market. This can't be said for iPhones, cars, or refrigerators.

That said, there is an attempt by governments to reduce the amount of coal used, and they've attempted to do it leveraging "market forces" by creating regulations that put a fiscal burden on coal use, in the hopes that the markets will do cost avoidance by moving to other fuels. To be quite honest, it hasn't worked very well. Emission standards have often been achieved through other technologies that allow coal to still be used. The real market force that has worked, and worked well, is natural gas and its relatively low price. Even China is slowly moving away from coal, despite the fact that it is easier and cheaper to use coal there, than it is here (i.e. fewer regulations on both the mining side and burning side).

It's kinda funny, or really ironic. The GOP is usually the "market forces" party. They complain about the government picking "winners and losers". And they occasionally have a point. If the government truly ran all the major industries, many innovations would have a hard time getting adopted because of the political disruption they would cause. If the government "owned" Ma Bell, the cell phone industry may have gone nowhere. But the GOP is as politically sensitive to changing markets as are the democrats. Coal is only one example of the GOP trying to stop change in an industry.