President Trump’s Coal Bailouts Lock-In Higher Costs, Forestall Real Solutions

The Trump administration is spending hundreds of millions more in taxpayer money to keep aging coal plants running, support new coal projects, and back a coal export terminal. This follows earlier moves to keep coal plants online past their planned retirement, push the military toward coal power, and roll back pollution rules covering mercury, toxic wastewater, coal ash, and carbon dioxide from coal plants.

For homeowners, the practical concern is cost and reliability. Coal plants are now generally more expensive to keep running than building new wind or solar, so propping them up tends to push electricity prices up rather than down. Coal plants have also become the least reliable part of the power system, meaning these subsidies may not even deliver steadier power. At the same time, the administration is working to slow new solar and wind projects, which are typically the fastest and cheapest new power sources to bring online, and which pair well with efficiency upgrades, battery storage, and grid improvements.

This is national energy policy news rather than a program change you can act on directly, but it matters for anyone watching utility bills. Electricity demand is already rising due to data center growth, and utility bills have been a strain for many households in the past year. Policy choices about whether to invest in coal or in renewables and efficiency will shape how much power costs in the years ahead, in every state.