Trump to use wartime powers to dole out $700m to coal industry

Workers transport and organize mounds of coal on a hilltop near an Arch Coal facility in Beckley, West Virginia, in 2025. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters View image in fullscreen Workers transport and organize mounds of coal on a hilltop near an Arch Coal facility in Beckley, West Virginia, in 2025. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters Trump to use wartime powers to dole out $700m to coal industry US president accused of ‘putting polluters first’ by invoking Defense Production Act to prop up coal output Donald Trump is to use a wartime presidential authority to hand $700m to coal-fired power plants in the US, the latest move by the president to bolster what he calls “beautiful clean coal” despite it being the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Trump is using the Defense Production Act, a cold war-era statute used to accelerate American industrial output in times of national need, to provide grants to more than a dozen existing coal plants across the US, including facilities capable of exporting coal. The president has long been a champion of reviving the US’s ailing coal industry, with Thursday’s White House event featuring supportive governors and lawmakers from coal-rich states such as Wyoming and West Virginia. In the past year, the Trump administration has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to the coal industry, signed orders forcing ratepayers to pay extra for ageing plants to stay open and dismantled environmental rules that limit toxins from coal leaching into Americans’ shared air and water. The administration’s attempts to provide a cuddly rebranding to coal have even extended to creating a new mascot with giant eyes , called Coalie, and gushing social media posts that include an image of a lump of coal wearing sunglasses as if it were on the TV show Love Island. Trump and his oil-and-coal oligarchy should face sanctions for their war on the environment | Alexander Hurst Read more “I have a little standing order in the White House – never use the word ‘coal’,” Trump said in a speech to the United Nations last year. “Only use the words ‘clean, beautiful coal’.” Regardless of such terminology, coal is not clean. It is the most carbon-dense fossil fuel and therefore a leading cause of the climate crisis when burned. Coal also gives off tiny toxic particles that sicken miners and trigger widespread respiratory and heart health problems across the US – research has estimated that as many as 460,000 deaths in the US between 1999 and 2020 were attributable to air pollution from coal plants alone. Environmental groups strongly criticized the administration’s latest aid for coal. “It is disgusting and reprehensible that the president of the United States is giving away our taxpayer dollars to deadly and expensive coal plants that will make Americans sicker and drive up electricity prices even more,” said Patrick Drupp, climate policy director of the Sierra Club. “This handout betrays everything Donald Trump promised and only serves his big coal buddie