Updates with details throughout
US president Donald Trump on Thursday invoked a 1950 defense law to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to support upgrades to the country's coal-fired generating fleet and expand west coast coal export capacity.
Claiming authority under the Defense Production Act, Trump plans to provide $425mn for upgrades to 13 existing coal-fired power plants in 10 states with combined capacity of over 14GW.
The administration will provide another $75mn for the proposed West Gateway export terminal, a project that was initially proposed more than 15 years ago to refurbish part of a former US Army base in Oakland, California, to potentially handle coal, petroleum coke and other dry bulk exports.
"Starting this summer, the West Gateway project will break ground, and by summer 2028 over 12mn tons of clean, beautiful coal per year will be shipped to countries all around the world," Trump said at a ceremony at the White House. The terminal will support energy exports to "allied nations" including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia, the US Department of Energy (DOE) said.
In a separate action, DOE, under its "Restoring Reliability: Coal Recommissioning and Modernization" initiative, will provide up to $350mn to support coal fleet upgrades.
That initiative will assess the feasibility of building two new coal plants, a 1,250MW facility in Anchorage, Alaska, and a 1,600MW plant in Mt Storm, West Virginia, and help to retrofit and modernize an existing 510MW coal-fired plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico, and to restart the closed, 205MW AES Warrior Run Generating plant in Cumberland, Maryland.
DOE already has committed to providing $175mn to help upgrade six coal plants.
Trump's Thursday announcement is part of a broader push to revive the coal industry, which has been in decline as US generators prefer cheaper natural gas and renewable sources. In 2025, coal supplied about 16pc of US electricity, down sharply from nearly half in 2010, according to US Energy Information Administration data.
The administration has also rolled back environmental regulations and has issued a number of emergency orders that have kept some coal plants in the US operating beyond their planned retirement dates.
"Coal generation shields consumers from the impacts of volatile energy prices and supply challenges; it's a vital piece of a sound energy strategy designed to meet the challenge of today's AI-driven demand growth in the context of the conflict in the Middle East," National Mining Association president Rich Nolan said on Thursday.
The Defense Production Act grants the president special authority to require domestic industries to prioritize activities essential to national defense, such as manufacturing military equipment or, as seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, producing critical medical supplies.
Trump in March and April also used the law to force the restart of a pipeline in California and to support the development of oil production.
