Trump Bails Out Two Ohio Coal Plants, a Move That Will Do Nothing To Improve Public Health or Lower Electric Bills

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Trump Administration announced its latest scheme to bail out the coal industry ordering up to $175 million in fundsoriginally intended to support energy resiliency, efficiency, and greenhouse gas reductions in rural communities to instead help prop up a number of old, inefficient coal plants. Included in this scheme are the Cardinal coal plant and the infamous OVEC Kyger Creek plant, both in Ohio. This is part of a suite of rollbacks that bolster the coal and fossil fuel industries, threatening to keep our coal plants online longer and make our environment and climate dirtier. In a brazen assault on the health and welfare of the American public, the Trump administration announced that it will finalize its rulerevoking the Environmental Protection Agency's longstanding greenhouse gas endangerment finding under the federal Clean Air Act, and roll back the mercury and air toxics standards for power plants and greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles.

Ohioans are all too familiar with coal plant bailouts. For years, Ohioans were forced to bail out both of the two archaic OVEC coal plants-Kyger Creek in Ohio and Clifty Creek in Indiana-as a result of Public Utilities Commission of Ohio action and the passage of the infamous House Bill 6. Those bailouts cost Ohioans hundreds of millions before House Bill 6 was finally repealed in 2025. Today's bailout of Kyger Creek and Cardinal continues this legacy of bailouts and initiatives out of touch with economic, environmental, and public health reality and is yet another handout to the coal and fossil fuel industries that will be paid for by taxpayers.

In response, Neil Waggoner, Midwest Beyond Coal Campaign Manager, released the following statement:

"Let's call this what it is: a giant bailout for the coal industry. Trump has shown time and time again that he loves driving up our costs in order to bail out his buddies in the coal and fossil fuel industries, and this is yet another example of it. We know from experience in Ohio already that bailouts involving the uneconomic OVEC coal plants that the only folks who benefit from coal plant bailouts are the owners of those coal plants while average electric customers are left footing the costs. Shoveling money originally meant to support rural communities to become more resilient towards plants already well past their prime and are a major source of pollution, instead of focusing on lowering electric customer costs and supporting more clean, efficient electricity is another example of Trump's legacy of failure and overreach."

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