Trump administration spending $625m to revive dying coal industry

The White House will open 13.1m acres (5.3m hectares) of public land to coal mining while providing $625m for coal-fired power plants, the Trump administration has announced.

The efforts came as part of a suite of initiatives from the Department of the Interior, Department of Energy, and Environmental Protection Agency, aimed at reviving the flagging coal sector. Coal, the most polluting and costly fossil fuel, has been on a rapid decline over the past 30 years, with the US halving its production between 2008 and 2023, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

“This is an industry that matters to our country,” interior secretary Doug Burgum said in a livestreamed press conference on Monday morning, alongside representatives from the other two departments. “It matters to the world, and it’s going to continue to matter for a long time.”

Coal plants provided about 15% of US electricity in 2024 – a steep fall from 50% in 2000 – the EIA found, with the growth of gas and green power displacing its use. Last year, wind and solar produced more electricity than coal in the US for the first time in history, according to the International Energy Agency, which predicts that could happen at the global level by the end of 2026.

Despite its dwindling role, Trump has made the reviving the coal sector a priority of his second term amid increasing energy demand due to the proliferation of artificial intelligence data centers.

“The Trump administration is hell-bent on supporting the oldest, dirtiest energy source. It’s handing our hard-earned tax dollars over to the owners of coal plants that cost more to run than new, clean energy,” said Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the national environmental non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council. “This is a colossal waste of our money at a time when the federal government should be spurring along the new energy sources that can power the AI boom and help bring down electricity bills for struggling families.”

The administration’s new $625m investment includes $350m to “modernize” coal plants, $175m for coal projects it claims will provide affordable and reliable energy to rural communities, and $50m to upgrade wastewater management systems to extend the lifespan of coal plants.

The efforts follow previous coal-focused initiatives from the Trump administration, which has greenlit mining leases while fast-tracking mining permits. It has also prolonged the life of some coal plants, exempted some coal plants from EPA rules, and falsely claimed that emissions from those plants are “not significant”.

The moves have sparked outrage from environmental advocates who note that coal pollution has been linked to hundreds of thousands of deaths across the past two decades. One study estimated that emissions from coal costs Americans $13-$26bn a year in additional ER visits, strokes and cardiac events, and a greater prevalence and severity of childhood asthma events.