{"slug": "trump-sending-700-million-to-coal-industry-including-wyoming-coal-plant", "title": "Trump Sending $700 Million To Coal Industry, Including Wyoming Coal Plant", "summary": "President Donald Trump allocated $700 million in public money for the coal industry on Thursday, invoking a Cold War-era law to bolster energy production amid rising demand from AI data centers and competition with China. The funding includes $425 million for 13 coal plants, $75 million for a coal export terminal in Oakland, California, and $200 million for new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia. The move comes as Wyoming coal production has fallen below 200 million tons for the first time since 1992, with the state's coal severance taxes dropping to their lowest level since 2003.", "body_md": "Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon joined President Trump in Washington, D.C., on Thursday as the president allocated $700 million in public money for the coal industry.\n\nWhile calling Gordon a \"great guy,\" the president invoked a Cold War-era law designed to boost energy production in the face of national security threats to allocate $700 million in public money for the coal industry.\n\nThe announcement enters a whirlwind of increasing demand for energy from AI-driven data centers, the legal greenlight for an [Oakland, California, coal port;](https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/09/18/california-supreme-court-clears-path-for-wyoming-coal-exports-through-oakland-port/) and the global energy and development race with China.\n\n**About Trump’s $700 Million Grant**\n\nCoal leasing on federal land in the Powder River Basin — a coal trove centered mostly in Wyoming — has brought in billions of dollars in revenue to the state and its coal mining industry, as it supplies roughly 40% of the thermal coal needed by power plants owned by electric utilities in the United States.\n\nPresident Donald Trump’s Thursday announcement lists three key objectives:\n\n• Allocate $425 million to bolster 13 coal plants across the country;\n\n• Allocate $75 million to boost construction of a coal export terminal in Oakland — a project Wyoming’s coal industry has long sought to uncork the Asian buyer market;\n\n• Send another $200 million in U.S. Department of Energy grant money to help build two new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia — the first new U.S. coal plants since 2013 — and restart a Maryland coal plant.\n\nCompanies in each of those states are expected to match that money or exceed it with their own investments, the announcement says.\n\nThe first two appropriations hinge on the Defense Production Act of 1950. The act of Congress calls U.S. security dependent on the nation’s own ability to supply materials and services for national defense “and to prepare for and respond to military conflicts” as well as disasters and terrorism.\n\nThe act authorizes the president to elevate national defense contracts over other government contracts, to interfere with the civilian market only where scarcities impede national defense, and incentivize the production of “critical components,” critical technology and other recourse needed “for the execution of the national security strategy of the United States.”\n\n**Smells Like Coal**\n\nWhen state Sen. Cale Case, R-Lander, walked into a Riverton elementary school for a tour in 2019, he sniffed aloud and said, “Smells like coal.”\n\nThe state has long depended on the commodity for revenue.\n\nCoal production in Wyoming peaked in 2008, when the Powder River Basin produced nearly 450 million tons of coal, and has trended unsteadily downward since then.\n\nWyoming surface coal production has fallen by 59.1% over the past 16 years. Thermal coal, which Wyoming produces, has seen lower demand in recent years.\n\nThat’s from coal-fired power plants either retiring or lowering their demand nationally as the market has shifted to both natural gas and renewable energy.\n\nCalendar year 2024 marked the first time Wyoming coal production had fallen below 200 million tons since 1992.\n\nThe industry saw it as a dark year, as President Joe Biden’s U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued a [ rule at that time](https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/05/16/biden-administrations-blm-wants-to-kill-wyoming-coal-by-2041/) aimed to end Wyoming coal by 2041.\n\nCoal in 2025 yielded $134 million in severance taxes for Wyoming – the lowest since 2003.\n\nThat’s 19.5% of Wyoming’s severance tax haul, with oil generating 54.9% and natural gas yielding 21.9%.\n\n*Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.*", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-sending-700-million-to-coal-industry-including-wyoming-coal-plant", "canonical_source": "https://cowboystatedaily.com/2026/06/04/trump-sending-700-million-to-coal-industry-including-wyoming-coal-plant/", "published_at": "2026-06-04 19:44:43+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-04 19:55:17.759347+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Donald Trump", "Mark Gordon", "Powder River Basin", "U.S. Department of Energy", "Oakland"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-sending-700-million-to-coal-industry-including-wyoming-coal-plant", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-sending-700-million-to-coal-industry-including-wyoming-coal-plant.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-sending-700-million-to-coal-industry-including-wyoming-coal-plant.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/trump-sending-700-million-to-coal-industry-including-wyoming-coal-plant.jsonld"}}