President Trump has announced a package of measures aimed at expanding coal mining and building new coal-fired power plants across the United States, framing the moves as an effort to bring down the price of energy and the cost of living for Americans. The announcement covered new export infrastructure, fresh power plant construction and a wave of recently approved mining permits.
At the centre of the plan is the West Gateway project, which the president said will break ground this summer. According to the announcement, by the summer of 2028 the project is expected to ship more than 12 million tons of coal per year to countries around the world. Trump noted that the project had been delayed for more than a decade before now moving forward.
The president also said the administration is repurposing nearly 200 million dollars that had previously been set aside for a green energy fund, redirecting it toward coal. That money, he said, would be used to start a coal plant in Maryland and to help build two brand new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia, all of which he described as relying on new and cleaner technology.
Trump said these would be the first new coal plants to open in the country since 2013, a period during which, he argued, plants had largely been closing rather than opening. He linked those earlier closures to electricity brownouts, contending that the new construction would help stabilise power supply for American households and industry.
On the permitting side, the president said that under the previous administration not a single permit had been approved for a new coal mining project over four years, while his own administration had approved 76 permits for coal in just over a year. He presented the figure as evidence of a sharp shift in federal energy policy toward supporting the coal sector.
Trump also said the measures would support coal mines and coal miners in a series of states, naming Wyoming, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, North Dakota and New Mexico. He claimed that workers in those areas would be returning to their jobs as a result of the actions being taken by his administration.
The president further stated that over the past year the administration had prevented 17 gigawatts of coal-powered electricity from going offline, which he said amounted to enough power for about 13 million homes at a low price. He indicated that Secretary Burgum, Secretary Wright and Administrator Lee Zeldin would speak following his remarks to provide further detail on the plans.