Trump Deploys Wartime Powers for $700M Coal Push
BBC Business reported Thursday that President Donald Trump has unveiled a $700 million federal commitment to revive American coal production, invoking Cold War-era legislation to secure the funding.
Speaking from the White House, Trump framed the initiative as direct relief for consumers squeezed by surging energy prices linked to the ongoing conflict with Iran.
Wartime Law Funds the Push
Trump reached for the Defense Production Act, a statute originally designed to mobilise industries during national emergencies, to unlock the bulk of the financing. The law grants the executive branch wide authority to direct capital toward sectors it deems critical to national security.
Of the total package, $500 million in federal grants will flow to preserving 14 existing coal-fired power plants and constructing a new export terminal in Oakland, California. The Department of Energy will deploy a further $200 million to fund two new generating facilities, one in Alaska and one in West Virginia. If built, those plants would be the first new coal facilities commissioned in the United States since 2013.
The affected plants span ten states, including Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
Trump said the Oakland terminal alone would create more than 1,400 jobs, with the full package projected to support roughly 14,000 positions across the sector. He also claimed the plan would spare consumers $50 billion in future energy generation costs.
Iran War Drives the Urgency
The geopolitical backdrop sharpens the rationale. Following US and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of global oil and gas supplies transit, has been disrupted. That squeeze pushed American pump prices to $4.24 per gallon as of Thursday, up sharply from $2.98 on the day hostilities began, according to motoring organisation AAA.
Official data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed overall consumer energy prices climbed 17.9% in the twelve months through April, intensifying political pressure on the administration to act.
Coal’s Long Decline as Context
American coal had been retreating for over a decade before this announcement. Cheap natural gas, falling renewable costs and tightening emissions rules had shuttered dozens of plants and idled mines across Appalachia and the broader coal belt. Trump has consistently pushed back against that trajectory, casting renewables as unreliable and positioning coal as a foundation of energy security.
Thursday’s announcement is the administration’s most financially significant domestic energy action since returning to office.
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