Presidential Determination Pursuant to Section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as Amended, on Coal Supply Chains and Baseload Power Generation Capacity
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
SUBJECT: Presidential Determination Pursuant to Section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as Amended, on Coal Supply Chains and Baseload Power Generation Capacity
On January 20, 2025, I issued Executive Order 14156 (Declaring a National Energy Emergency), under the National Emergencies Act. That order found that America’s inadequate energy production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the Nation’s economy, national security, and foreign policy. It emphasized that our Nation’s current inadequate and intermittent energy supply leaves us vulnerable to hostile foreign actors and poses an imminent and growing threat to the United States’ prosperity and national security.
Consistent with that declaration, I find that ensuring reliable coal supply chains and baseload power generation capacity is essential to United States national defense. Coal mining and logistics, terminals, stockpile, and power generation facilities provide indispensable resilience to our power grids that cannot be replaced. Without sufficient coal-fired baseload power, the United States will lack the stable electricity required to support defense installations, industrial expansion, and the high-energy demands of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
Therefore, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 303 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (the “Act”) (50 U.S.C. 4533), I hereby determine, pursuant to section 303(a)(5) of the Act, that:
(1) coal supply chains and baseload power generation capacity, including coal mining, rail and barge logistics, export and domestic terminals, generating unit availability and life-extension work, on-site stockpiles, and associated reliability updates, are industrial resources, materials, or critical technology items essential to the national defense;
(2) without Presidential action under section 303 of the Act, United States industry cannot reasonably be expected to provide these capabilities for the needed industrial resource, material, or critical technology item in a timely manner due to financing constraints, regulatory delays, long-lead maintenance, expensive and bespoke repair cycles, and market barriers; and
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Trump Invokes Wartime Powers to Fund New Energy Projects
President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to provide federal funds for a wide range of energy projects, as his administration faces pressure to help curb rising oil, gasoline and electricity costs.
Trump on Monday signed five presidential determinations under the law, targeting domestic coal power, liquefied natural gas, domestic petroleum and power-grid infrastructure — areas where he said insufficiencies threaten national defense.
The move allows the Energy Department to deploy funding that was secured last year in Trump’s flagship tax-and-spending package. Under the directives, the agency is authorized to use energy purchases, financial support and other tools to overcome delays, financing shortfalls, regulatory hold-ups and market barriers.
With Trump’s signature, the determinations set the stage for the federal government to release funds targeting purchases under those categories later. Projects eligible for support could include coal-fired power plants, refineries and facilities that manufacture gas turbines and transformers — electrical equipment that’s been subject to shortages.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers cast the move as helping Trump fulfill his promise “to fully unleash American energy dominance to protect our economic and national security.”
The determinations allow the use of federal funding to “strengthen our grid infrastructure and unleash reliable, affordable, secure energy,” she added.
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First New Coal Power Plant Planned in the US in Over a Decade
Secretary of the Interior and Chair of the National Energy Dominance Council Doug Burgum, along with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, President and Chair of the U.S. Export-Import Bank John Jovanovic, NEDC Director Jarrod Agen, and U.S. Trade and Development Agency Deputy Director Thomas Hardy, convened Indo- Pacific leaders from 17 countries at the Indo-Pacific Energy Security Ministerial and Business Forum in Tokyo, Japan.
The conference announced historic investments in energy infrastructure, critical minerals and advanced technologies. One such announcement came from Terra Energy Center, which reached a $1 billion agreement in principle with Hyundai Heavy Industries Power Systems to provide large-scale coal power plant boilers for a new 1.25 gigawatt project in Alaska.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shakes hands with Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Akazawa at IPEM 2026.
The announcement of a new coal power plant marks the first investment in new U.S. coal power in more than a decade, following the completion of the last major coal plant, Sandy Creek, a 932-megawatt facility in Texas.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum shakes hands with Japan’s Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Ryosei Akazawa at IPEM 2026.
Beyond backing from the U.S. government, Terra Energy’s new coal power plant received a $500 million equity investment commitment from KOREIT, one of Korea’s largest infrastructure private equity firms.
India Produces 1B MT of Coal
For the second consecutive year, India has produced more than 1 billion metric tons (mt) of coal as of March 20, 2026. The milestone comes as the Indian government has undertaken various steps to raise coal production levels, including commercial coal mining, quickened environmental clearances and faster development of infrastructure meant to facilitate coal logistics.
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Trump Turns to Coal to Fuel AI Boom
American demand for coal has surged as technology companies scramble to power data centres for AI.
The US consumed 410 million tonnes of coal last year, an annual increase of about 38 million tonnes, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
That was the largest increase of any region and bucked a general trend of slowing growth around the world, including in China.
It follows Donald Trump’s pledge to make coal a major part of his plan for “American energy dominance”, with the president easing pollution standards and spending hundreds of millions of dollars to keep plants across the country open.
Coal releases nearly twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas when burned.
Some 190 nations, including the US and China, made a pledge in 2021 at the UK-led United Nations climate summit in Scotland to “phase down” use of the fuel.
But Trump has instead focused on reviving the US coal industry, arguing that it will help to keep energy prices low and will reduce the risk of blackouts.
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PJM’s Power Crunch: Why Coal Is Critical to Closing a 60-Gigawatt Gap
As the data center boom advances, electricity grids across the country are scrambling to find new generation. While a growing number of data centers are turning to behind the meter solutions – proposing to generate their own power on site – regional grids are also facing a tsunami of new demand. Nowhere is that truer than PJM, the nation’s largest electricity market serving 67 million Americans stretching from Virginia to Chicago.
Once a grid reliability bulwark with deep reserve margins that often served as a lifeline for regional partners in periods of peak demand, PJM is now facing a multi-gigawatt supply shortage by the summer of 2027 that experts fear will balloon to 60 gigawatts over the next decade. It’s a supply gulf equal to the power needs of 45 million homes.
To help fill the gulf, PJM is seeking 15 gigawatts of new power supplies in an emergency auction. The auction requires new capacity which can be new builds, capacity additions to existing power plants, repowering deactivated generators as well as demand response and distributed energy resources. To be eligible, the projects must show they can be online by June 1, 2031, along with any enabling infrastructure.
It’s an aggressive timeline that is colliding with a host of challenges facing new generation, particularly new gas generation. If PJM hopes to meet these targets, coal power will be essential.
The Case for Coal
While delayed power plant retirements will not qualify for the auction, the loss of additional coal capacity in PJM will only make meeting soaring demand doubly difficult. Keeping existing coal capacity available is vital to closing – not expanding – the supply deficit.
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