You can’t make this stuff up. Faced with a mounting wave of voter rage over high electricity costs, US President Donald Trump is piling on the hurt with a new, billion-dollar effort to build new coal power plants and keep the old ones running well past their sell-by dates, resulting in huge expenses that will be passed on to ratepayers. If Democratic candidates smell blood in the water as the 2026 midterm elections approach — and they do — Trump is only helping them. Coal Miners Stabbed In The Back, Part 1 By now, everyone knows that wind and solar (especially solar) are the fastest, most economical ways to get more electricity into the hands of more ratepayers, with modern energy storage and smart grid technology filling in the gaps in availability. But, never mind all that. For reasons best known only to himself, Trump has staked his reputation on bringing back coal jobs, which explains the $1 billion Trump just dropped upon new coal power plants, old coal power plants, and a new coal export facility. The cuddly relationship with miners goes back to Trump’s first term in office, when he swept into the White House on the strength of race-based campaign rhetoric. He incessantly hammered on the imperative to save coal jobs, which were, and still are, largely held by Trump’s favorite demographic. Demographics or not, Trump failed to keep his campaign promise. The job-saving effort flopped massively after Trump took office in 2017, with competition from natural gas in the power generation field being one key factor following a generations-long drip, drip, drip of job loss consequent upon the march of mechanization. Stabbed In The Back, Part 2 The second time around, Trump has met with mixed success due in large part to a series of emergency orders issued by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. In April, the US Energy Information Agency reported that coal consumption by power plants rose significantly last year, by 12%. However, in the same report EIA also noted that coal exports decreased during Trump’s first year back in office. “After four years of growth, U.S. coal exports decreased by 16 million short tons (MMst) in 2025, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau,” the US Energy Information Agency reported in April. “The decrease in U.S. coal exports largely reflects a 92% decrease in exports to China in 2025 compared with 2024, after China imposed a 15% additional tariff on imports of U.S. coal in February of last year and a 34% reciprocal tariff on imports from the United States in April,” EIA added. “It also reflects a global market characterized by ample supply and soft demand, which caused prices to decline, making it increasingly difficult for U.S. coal exporters to earn profits,” EIA added again for good measure. As for bringing back coal jobs to any significant degree, take another look at the chart at the top of this page. Trump can work around the edges, but coal has been marginalized by natural gas including NGPL (short for natural gas plant liquids), and it is barely keeping up with the surging pace of renewables. For the record, EIA has notes that only four coal power plants were retired in 2025, the lowest number in 15 years. In its April 13 report, the agency also took note of several delayed or canceled retirements, mainly on account of Wright’s emergency orders. However, the EIA has continued to track additional retirements scheduled for this year and beyond, and Trump’s new “American Energy Dominance” policy is set to tip the balance in favor of retirements. The new policy embraces the US geothermal industry, which is poised to commercialize advanced technologies that open up wide new swaths of territory for power generation in competition with coal. The nation’s hydropower industry is also set for a fresh burst of activity with support from the Trump administration. Stabbed In The Back, Part 2 As or those legally questionable emergency orders, Energy Secretary Wright has no immanent “emergency” to show except for Trump’s initial energy emergency declaration, which was similarly devoid of fact. Nevertheless, facts are facts. Coal retirements are planned years in advance, providing utilities with ample of time to assemble alternate sources including natural gas as well as renewables and storage. So, where’s the fire? Utilities, state officials, and other stakeholders want to know the answer to that. They have been pushing back in court, and that helps explain Trump’s newly announced billion-dollar payout. Good luck with that. Industry insiders note that old coal power plants are not only expensive to operate but difficult to maintain in operating order, which explains why utilities like to retire them in favor of modern, 21st century solutions, namely, natural gas and renewables with storage. A case in point is the R.M. Schahfer coal plant in Indiana, which has not been producing any electricity of late despite a series of emergency orders issued by Wright. The plant went offline for repairs in February and its owner, NIPSCO, told regulators that it does not expected to fire it up until the fall. “The utility added that even without that energy, it is well positioned to meet power demand this summer, in large part thanks to new wind, solar, and batteries,” notes Canary Media reporter Kari Lydersen. Again, where’s the fire? Coal Jobs Bite Back In an interesting development, the labor market itself is working against Trump’s plan. Last October, the price reporting firm Argus Media observed that coal producers were having trouble keeping up with the demand from coal power plants, explaining that “attracting and retaining coal miners remains challenging because the industry’s long-term prospects remain uncertain.” “The number of people employed as coal miners in the US fell in August to 40,300, the lowest level in over three years,” Argus Media reported, citing data from the US Department of Labor for the first eight months of Trump’s term last year. So much for coal jobs. Further bottlenecks noted by Argus include delivery delays attributed to shortcoming in the nation’s rail freight system, delays related to mine upgrade work, and delays related to procuring up-to-date, reliable equipment. That’s just for starters. In an op-ed for Reuters posted earlier today, columnist Gavin Maguire catalogued “structural forces that are unlikely to reverse.” Stiff price competition from natural gas for the electricity generated by power plants makes the top of the list. For all the taxpayer dollars shoved at the coal industry, the Trump administration makes no attempt to explain how coal power plants can bridge that gap, currently estimated at about $64 per megawatt-hour for gas while coal clocks in at $115. Compared to modern combined-cycle gas power plants, coal power plants are much more complex to build and the industry has already lost much of the workforce capable of managing such a task successfully. Then there’s the work to be done once the plant is up and running. “Coal facilities must manage large volumes of solid fuel, requiring transport, crushing, storage yards, and elaborate combustion systems,” Maguire notes, also taking into account the pesky issue of ash disposal. Among other matters, Maguire questions the ability of the export market to reverse the decline in domestic coal jobs. In that regard, let’s take another look at the nation’s natural gas industry, which has one of its own at the top of the federal energy policy totem pole. Energy Secretary Wright came to his post after founding and serving as CEO of the leading oil and gas services firm Liberty, which is most likely among the industry stakeholders applauding the recent launch of the nation’s 9th liquid natural gas export terminal, providing domestic coal producers with yet another source of competition in the export market. Wright himself shook out the pom-poms back in April to celebrate a new LNG export plan aimed at increasing shipments to Europe, noting that the US is “on track to more than double its exports within the next decade.” Yikes! Image: If US President Donald Trump really wants to boost coal production, bring back coal jobs, and restore the US coal industry to its former glory — oh, never mind. Seriously, he must be joking (screenshot, courtesy of US EIA).
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