Donald Trump to Give $700 Million of Taxpayer Money to America’s Coal Fleet, Including Wisconsin

WISCONSIN - Today, Donald Trump is expected to announce plans to give away $700 million in taxpayer grants to build a coal export terminal and prop up 13 coal plants across the country, including in Wisconsin. The grants will also go to building two new coal plants, marking the latest in a string of costly bailouts for the collapsing coal industry. The U.S. has not built a new coal plant in more than a decade due to the staggering health costs and brutal economics. The announcement comes at a time when most Americans are reporting higher energy bills, in part due to the high cost of keeping Wisconsin's coal plants online. Details about how and where this will impact Wisconsin are expected to be announced this afternoon.

In response, Sierra Club released the following statements:

Elizabeth Ward, Wisconsin Chapter Director: "Coal is the single-most expensive energy source. In a time of an affordability crisis, it's outrageous that the President would take our hard-earned taxpayer dollars and dish it out to prop up the dying coal industry in order to further pad executives' pockets, while the rest of us struggle to afford to keep the lights on and put gas in our cars. Wisconsinites don't want their money to go to more coal pollution for years to come."

Patrick Drupp, Climate Policy Director: "It is disgusting and reprehensible that the President of the United States is giving away our taxpayer dollars to deadly and expensive coal plants that will make Americans sicker and drive up electricity prices even more. This handout betrays everything Donald Trump promised and only serves his Big Coal buddies who stroke his ego and hand him shiny trophies. The Sierra Club will do everything we can to fight back against this reckless handout and defend our communities from more soaring costs and toxic pollution."

According to Sierra Club's Out of Control dashboard, coal pollution is responsible for 6,500 premature deaths in the United States every year-a number that will increase as the Trump administration continues to desperately keep the rapidly declining coal industry on life support. Trump's Department of Energy has illegally extended the life of coal plants and Trump's Environmental Protection Agency has given coal plants numerous shortcuts and pollution passes, and dismantled lifesaving safeguards that protect communities from coal pollution.

Meanwhile, clean energy outperforms coal economically and does not lead to more hospital visits or missed work days. Yet rather than investing in cheap clean energy, the Trump administration has paid energy companies billions of dollars to cancel renewable energy projects.

About the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club is America's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit https://www.sierraclub.org.