The announcement

President Donald Trump confirmed on Thursday that his administration would direct roughly $700 million toward the American coal industry, invoking the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era statute that grants presidents broad authority over industries deemed vital to national security. The package, first reported by Bloomberg, was detailed in an Oval Office event flanked by Republican governors and cabinet officials.

“Today we're taking historic action to bring down the price of energy and the cost of living for all Americans with the power of clean, beautiful coal.”

Where the money goes

Of the total, $425 million will be distributed across 13 existing coal-fired power plants for upgrades and life-extension work, according to the breakdown supplied by the White House. A further $185 million, drawn from Energy Department programmes originally earmarked for cutting carbon dioxide emissions, will match corporate funds for two new-build plants (one in Alaska, one in West Virginia) and help restart a shuttered facility in Maryland. The remaining $75 million is allocated to the long-proposed West Gateway export terminal in Oakland, California, which would open a new Pacific outlet for coal from Wyoming, Montana and other interior states.

The two new plants would be the first coal-burning units built in the United States since 2013. The Alaska project, called Terra Energy Center, is planned for the Matanuska-Susitna Valley north of Anchorage and is backed by an affiliate of Canada-based Flatlands Energy; developers have pointed to potential demand from gold mines and data centres as local natural gas supplies from Cook Inlet dwindle.

The policy rationale

Administration officials framed the intervention as a national-security imperative, citing the electricity needs of artificial-intelligence data centres and a desire to reduce dependence on foreign fossil-fuel suppliers. The Energy Department had already ordered five ageing coal units to remain online past their scheduled closure dates, and in February the Pentagon was directed to sign long-term power contracts with coal-fired plants.

“President Trump has ended the war on American coal.”

Coal's role in the US power mix has shrunk steadily. It supplied 16 percent of electricity generation in 2023, down from roughly 40 percent a decade earlier and more than half in 1990, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Renewables including hydropower now account for over 20 percent.

1990

52 %

2013

40 %

2023

16 %

Data from the article text

Reaction

Environmental groups condemned the package. Patrick Drupp, a US environmental advocate, called the plan a taxpayer-funded subsidy for a polluting industry. Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, labelled it a "Polluters First Agenda" and warned that costs would be passed to consumers. The administration countered that the measures would stabilise the grid and lower household energy bills, though outside experts noted that new coal plants are more expensive to build and run than gas or renewable alternatives.

“Every dollar spent bailing out these aging, inefficient relics will get passed straight to consumers, meaning even higher bills, guaranteed, every single time.”

“It is disgusting and reprehensible that the president of the United States is wasting our tax dollars on deadly and expensive coal plants.”