President Trump is expected to put nearly $700 million in federal muscle behind American coal, and he is doing it with a national-defense law most people forgot was on the books.
The plan would support coal-fired power, new coal capacity, and coal exports under the Defense Production Act, the same Cold War-era authority built to protect supplies the country cannot afford to lose.
This is energy dominance with teeth, not a slogan.
According to AP News, a White House official said the package would support 13 coal plants across the country and help build new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia.
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The same reporting says the plan would restart a shuttered coal-fired plant in Maryland and back a long-delayed coal export terminal in Oakland, California.
That last piece matters because the left has spent years trying to choke off West Coast coal exports entirely.
The funding breakdown lines up across outlets.
As Reuters laid out, more than half of the money would fund 13 coal plant upgrades, $185 million would match corporate funds for coal facilities in Alaska, Maryland, and West Virginia, and $75 million would support the West Gateway export terminal in Northern California.
The logic for all of this was set in writing back in April.
Trump’s April 20 presidential determination spelled out why reliable coal and baseload power are treated as a national-defense matter:
Consistent with that declaration, I find that ensuring reliable coal supply chains and baseload power generation capacity is essential to United States national defense. Coal mining and logistics, terminals, stockpile, and power generation facilities provide indispensable resilience to our power grids that cannot be replaced.
Without sufficient coal-fired baseload power, the United States will lack the stable electricity required to support defense installations, industrial expansion, and the high-energy demands of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended, I hereby determine, pursuant to section 303(a)(5) of the Act, that coal supply chains and baseload power generation capacity, including coal mining, rail and barge logistics, export and domestic terminals, generating unit availability and life-extension work, on-site stockpiles, and associated reliability updates, are industrial resources, materials, or critical technology items essential to the national defense.
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That is the heart of it.
The country is trying to power data centers, factories, and an AI buildout while years of green policy hollowed out the dependable generation that keeps the lights on.
Wind and solar do not run a defense installation at 2 a.m. in a deep freeze. Coal does.
The April order also authorized and directed the Energy Secretary to carry out the determination, including purchases, commitments, and financial instruments for coal-related projects.
So the money expected Thursday is not a one-off press release. It is the policy backbone being put to work.
COAL COMEBACK: President Trump is expected to report nearly $700 million in new federal support for the coal industry on Thursday.
This move aims at strengthening American energy production, protecting mining jobs, and bolstering the nation’s energy security.
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For coal country, that means jobs that politicians wrote off as gone for good. For the grid, it means baseload power the country can count on instead of crossing its fingers on the weather.
Trump promised an end to the war on coal, and the receipts are starting to add up.
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