This may be hard to digest for some, but the United States needs to ramp up both coal production and coal powered generation. As the coal fleet quietly and repeatedly proves itself to be a critically important tool to address eroding grid reliability during times of maximum demand, it’s past time to recognize the value it offers the U.S. in the global AI race.

On Monday, leaders from the Department of Interior, Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) outlined a suite of actions to boost U.S. coal production and level the playing field for the U.S. coal fleet.

Interior will open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal leasing and reduce the royalty rates for federal coal production from 12.5% to 7% while also aiming to streamline coal lease approvals. The Energy Department is investing $625 million into coal power plants to primarily recommission or modernize generating units. And the EPA will provide additional compliance time for coal plants to meet the 2024 Effluent Limitations Guidelines and is moving forward with plans to amend its regional haze rule.

The administration is laser-focused on undoing the regulatory and energy policy damage imposed by the Biden administration to allow coal miners and the coal power plant fleet to meet this extraordinary energy and industrial moment.

“We have to have a strong, powerful coal industry — not for five years, not for 10 years. It’s got to be here for decades,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told Fox Business, “We’re going to export more of that coal, we’re going to use it for American industry, particularly as we reindustrialize, and it’s going to continue to provide 15%-16% of our electricity and enable us to reindustrialize and win the AI race.”

Wright added that the administration simply does not want to see any existing coal plants retire and is working with utilities to make sure that doesn’t happen. While Wright intervened to keep the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan running this summer – a notable success – utilities themselves are leading the way in postponing or altogether cancelling coal plant closures. More than 40 plants have seen their retirement dates bumped or scrapped in just the past few years.

Despite mounting evidence otherwise, there is skepticism the administration’s actions will prove significant or that the coal fleet will be essential in the years ahead. But the case for the importance of these actions and for the importance of ramping up both coal production and generation is far stronger. Consider:

1. Eroding Reliability and Surging Demand: The reliability of the nation’s power supply is in crisis with the majority of the nation facing power shortfalls within a decade. Surging power demand from reindustrialization, electrification and – most notably – the AI revolution has reliability regulators, grid operators and utilities scrambling to find more dispatchable power. With speed to power everything in this unprecedented moment, existing, underutilized dispatchable capacity is now invaluable.
   
2. Electricity Price Inflation: Electricity prices are soaring and the three leading drivers are huge capital expenditures on new infrastructure, natural gas price volatility and surging capacity prices from looming supply shortfalls. Existing coal plants are an answer to all three challenges. Natural gas prices have jumped from $2 per million BTU a year ago to now $3.20 per MMBtu and are forecasted to rise significantly higher. Coal generation is already taking market share and serving as a price shock absorber for consumers. With the U.S. Energy Information Administration projecting the Henry Hub spot price to average $4.30 per MMBtu in 2026 and U.S. LNG export capacity poised to jump 84% in just the next four years, coal generation is increasingly competitive and essential in the domestic marketplace.
   
3. A Dispatchable Bridge: Adding new dispatchable capacity – whether gas generation, nuclear power or geothermal – in the near-term is proving an immense challenge. Data centers are swallowing new gas turbine orders and prices for turbines are soaring with the gas supply chain struggling to keep up. Expanding pipeline infrastructure to provide uninterruptible gas supply at the speed and scale needed is a very tall order indeed. A potential nuclear power renaissance and the deployment of a new generation of reactors is promising but not a near-term answer to the nation’s power needs. The same is true for advanced geothermal or long duration batteries. For additional, fuel-secure dispatchable capacity, the existing coal fleet is irreplaceable.
   
4. Reindustrialization: The administration is determined to rebuild and expand the nation’s industrial base. That will take immense amounts of power but also immense amounts of steel, cement and critical materials. Coal – once again – checks all those boxes providing affordable baseload power, metallurgical coal for steel production and is increasingly important as an answer to the nation’s alarming mineral import reliance. The nation’s first new rare earth mine in 70 years is also a coal mine.
   
5. Global Demand: Coal remains the world’s leading fuel for electricity generation, is used to produce 70% of the world’s steel and global coal demand set an all-time high in 2024. U.S. coal exports – which reach more than 70 nations – are an economic boon and a critically important tool to rebalance our trade relationships and meet the energy security needs of key allies and trading partners. The world needs more coal and U.S. production is well positioned to meet it.

The stage is set for coal to play a deeply important role in driving U.S. reindustrialization and meeting the incredible power demand now on our doorstep. The Trump administration is counting on it.