Trump plans $700 million in new coal support

U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to use Cold War-era national defense powers to send nearly $700 million to support coal facilities, according to a White House official. Trump could announce as soon as Thursday that he will invoke the Defense Production Act, the 1950 law granting presidents wide authority over national security-related industries, to upgrade more than a dozen coal power plants, build a massive West Coast coal export terminal and match corporate funds to build new power plants, the official said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to not preempt the president’s announcement, and cautioned that the details could still change. The Trump administration has framed energy issues in existential terms as it eyes the domestic need to sustain power-hungry artificial-intelligence data centers and aims to marginalize foreign adversaries that hold large fossil fuel reserves. Coal, though, has faced steady declines in U.S. usage. It once accounted for more than half of U.S