One of the biggest policy failures of President Donald Trump’s first term was his bid to save coal. A flurry of executive orders this week suggests the president learned some lessons from the experience.
Analysts still doubt it will be enough to save the industry.
As part of the orders announced Tuesday, the Energy Department plans to offer $200 billion in federal loans for companies looking to support new and existing coal plants. The move is an attempt to address the fundamental challenge facing the U.S. coal industry: Utilities keep closing coal plants without building any new ones.
Whether any power companies take the president up on the offer is a different matter.
Utilities generally plan on running newly built power plants for decades, making large investments in new coal facilities uniquely vulnerable to future climate regulations. It’s one of the main reasons a tiny coal plant at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, is the solitary coal facility built in the U.S. over the last decade. And its why few analysts expect to see power companies beating down DOE’s door to build a new coal facility.
“I would not be surprised if a cooperative or a utility in a deep red state takes this on and announces a project,” said Andy Blumenfeld, a longtime coal analyst at McCloskey by OPIS. “Now how far that gets — would it actually get to actual construction and operation? I think the odds of that are very slim. But could there be a project or two announced? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
A new project or two won’t be enough to save America’s coal industry. Almost 40 percent of the U.S. coal fleet closed over the last decade, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration figures.
A lot of that occurred in Trump’s first term. Some 48 gigawatts of coal capacity shut down between 2017 and 2020, the highest four-year total among the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. (Roughly 54 gigawatts closed during Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House, while another 36 GW closed during Joe Biden’s four years.)
The shutdowns were a brutal blow for Trump, who campaigned on reviving the coal industry in 2016. Coal notably received less mentions from the president on the campaign trail in 2020, when Trump lost to Biden, and 2024, when he bested former Vice President Kamala Harris.
But the president has two things working in his favor this time.
His National Energy Dominance Council is led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who has some experience saving coal plants as governor of North Dakota. The state’s largest coal plant was slated to shut downbefore Burgum helped engineer its sale to a company willing to run the plant in 2021.
Even more importantly, rising power demand have made utilities increasingly hesitant to close coal plants once slated for the scrap heap. Power companies have delayed coal plant closures in Illinois, Maryland and Wisconsin in recent months, citing growing demands for power.
The 4.4 GW of coal plants closed last year was the lowest retirement total since 2011, according to EIA data. And those still online are running more. Coal generation was 197 terawatt-hours in the first quarter of 2025, preliminary EIA figures show, up 20 percent from the same time last year. It is the coal industry’s best first quarter since 2022.
“President Trump and his administration on Tuesday made good on the promises to the coal industry,” said Emily Arthun, chief executive officer at the American Coal Council. “There is a great opportunity and a great sense of optimism that this does inject much needed hope into the coal industry.”
She cited one order, which would lift a moratorium on coal leasing and designate it a critical mineral, as particularly helpful for the industry.
Another order would pave the way for the Trump administration to use its emergency authority to direct utilities to keep coal plants open in the name of grid stability. It directs Energy Secretary Chris Wright to develop a methodology for assessing the reserve margins of grid operators across the country to ensure that they have enough electricity generating capacity on hand.
Short-lived boost?
EIA figures show that 19 generating units at 11 coal plants with 8.6 GW of combined capacity will close this year. But those figures include two units at Brandon Shores, a 1.4 gigawatt coal plant in Maryland, and two units at the Columbia Energy Center, a 641 MW coal facility in Wisconsin, that have had their retirement dates postponed in recent months.
They also include the Intermountain Power Project, a massive 1.6 GW power plant in Utah that faces an uncertain future. The Intermountain Power Agency, the plant’s operator, has long shipped power from the plant to California. But as California seeks to green its electricity supply, the power agency has decided to replace the coal plant with a new facility that runs on a blend of natural gas and hydrogen.
The effort to close the coal plant is opposed by state lawmakers in Utah, who recently passed a bill tasking the state with finding a new operator for the plant.
“When IPP’s new hydrogen-capable natural gas units enter commercial service later this summer, the coal units will be laid up in operable condition so that they can be restarted if the state’s efforts are successful,” said John Ward, a spokesperson for the Intermountain Power Agency.
Trump’s executive orders are likely to give coal plants a short-term lease on life at best, analysts said. The emergency authority cited by the administration to keep plants open has traditionally only been used for a matter of weeks. Attempts by the administration to utilize it to keep plants open for a long duration of time will likely face legal challenges from liberal states.
“We believe Trump’s coal executive orders are unlikely to have a material impact on power or carbon markets, given the constraints on the use of emergency authorities and the orders’ symbolic nature,” analysis firm Capstone wrote in a recent note to clients.
Trump’s efforts to save coal could collide with climate goals in Democrat-led states.
A large coal plant is slated to close in Michigan in May, while coal generating units at two plants in Colorado are set to shut down by the end of this year. The last coal plant in Washington state is also set to close this year, per a 2011 agreement between TransAlta and then-Gov. Christine Gregoire. TransAlta is now contemplating revamping the plant to burn natural gas.
In his remarks Tuesday, Trump name-checked Cholla Power Plant in Arizona, saying he had directed Wright to save the “big plant, which has been slated for destruction.” A spokesperson for Arizona Public Service, which runs the plant, said Cholla was closed due to federal regulations and “increasing costs that have made the plant uneconomical to operate.”
“We remain committed to working with the administration to ensure we can continue serving Arizonans with reliable energy at the lowest cost possible,” APS spokesperson Ann Porter said in a statement.
This wouldn’t be the first time Trump tried to save a large coal plant in Arizona. During his first term, his administration attempted to save Navajo Generating Station, which long ranked among America’s largest coal plants. The government even owned a stake in the plant alongside a handful of utilities. But the effort ultimately ended in failure and Navajo Generating Station closed in 2019.
This story also appears in Energywire.
