Trump fires up coal with wartime powers: energy security, or propping up the dirtiest fuel?
President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to steer some $700 million to coal-fired power — including two new plants in Alaska and West Virginia — backing what he calls 'clean, beautiful coal.' Supporters call it a grid-reliability and energy-security move; critics call it an emergency-powers lifeline for the dirtiest fossil fuel.
The summary above is a neutral framing. Below, each side reports the same story in its own words — judge for yourself.
The administration frames the move as shoring up reliable power: using wartime authority to keep coal plants running and to build new ones, treating dependable baseload generation as a national-security priority as electricity demand climbs.
Opponents say it props up the dirtiest of fossil fuels — a declining, polluting industry — by stretching emergency wartime powers to do it, locking in emissions and costs at a time when cleaner power is often cheaper.
