Trump to use wartime powers to dole out $700m to coal industry

Donald Trump is to use a wartime presidential authority to hand $700m to coal-fired power plants in the US, the latest move by the president to bolster what he calls “beautiful clean coal” despite it being the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Trump is using the Defense Production Act, a cold war-era statute used to accelerate American industrial output in times of national need, to provide grants to more than a dozen existing coal plants across the US, including facilities capable of exporting coal. The president has long been a champion of reviving the US’s ailing coal industry, with Thursday’s White House event featuring supportive governors and lawmakers from coal-rich states such as Wyoming and West Virginia. In the past year, the Trump administration has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to the coal industry, signed orders forcing ratepayers to pay extra for ageing plants to stay open and dismantled environmental rules that limit toxins from coal leaching into Americans’ shared air and water. The administration’s attempts to provide a cuddly rebranding to coal have even extended to creating a new mascot with giant eyes , called Coalie, and gushing social media posts that include an image of a lump of coal wearing sunglasses as if it were on the TV show Love Island. “I have a little standing order in the White House – never use the word ‘coal’,” Trump said in a speech to the United Nations last year. …