The coal industry has been in decline for decades. But tell that to president Trump, who’s firmly convinced he’d rather save coal from dying than the Earth’s climate.
Extolling the power of “clean, beautiful coal,” Trump announced Thursday that the federal government will heap $700 million towards supporting the coal industry, which will go to existing coal-burning plants as well as fund the construction of two new ones.
“We’re into energy that really works,” Trump said during a briefing at the Oval Office, calling his plan a “historic action to bring down the price of energy.”
Pound for pound, coal is the most carbon-emitting fuel and is the largest source of global CO2 emissions, releasing loads of other toxic pollutants. For decades, many countries, including the US, have been phasing out coal power, with it accounting for just ten percent of domestic energy production.
But the rapid rise of the AI industry has seen a surge in demand for more power, and coal plants once on the verge of being sunsetted are increasingly being brought back online to meet those energy needs.
Trump is procuring the $700 million in funds by invoking the 1950 Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law that gives the president emergency powers to control domestic industries in the name of national security. It’s part of a playbook he’s used in the past: in 2025, he declared a national energy emergency in a similar bid to revitalize the coal industry.
In a grimly ironic twist, these funds are coming from money Congress originally set aside to reduce CO2 emissions from heavily polluting industries, according to The New York Times.
$425 million of the funds will be used to upgrade 13 coal plants and keep them online past their expected shelf life. Additional funding will go towards the construction of two new plants in Alaska and West Virginia, which will be the first new coal plants built in the US since 2013.
The move was unsurprisingly blasted by environmental experts.
“Propping up coal billionaires with taxpayer money is one more way for the Trump administration to put polluters first and put the rest of us at risk,” Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The Associated Press.
On top of being critical of its environmental ramifications, the experts were skeptical that the coal industry could be restored to its former glory. Since 2010, 330 coal plants have been shut down and another 60 are slated to close by 2031, according to the environmental group the Sierra Club, per the NYT.
“There is no coal renaissance happening in the United States,” Holly Bender, chief program officer at the Sierra Club, told the newspaper.
“Spending $700 million to bail out the coal industry is like throwing a lifeline to a ship that has already sunk,” Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action, another environmental group, told the AP.
Despite the moribund state of the industry, Trump is claiming his initiative will create 14,000 new jobs.
“Coal’s a great business,” Trump said.
More on the environment: Trump Moves to Let Coal Companies Pollute Waterways With Their Toxic Slag
