Arizona communities bank on Trump’s push for coal to ensure they’re not forgotten

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JOSEPH CITY, Ariz. (AP) — Brantley Baird never misses a chance to talk history, from how his great-grandmother helped settle the town of Snowflake long before Arizona was granted statehood to tales of riding to school bareback and tethering his horse outside the one-room schoolhouse.

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His family worked the land and raised livestock, watching the railroad come and go and cattle empires rise and fall. Then came the coal-fired power plants, built throughout northern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico to power progress in distant Western cities.

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The plants would play their own role in the history of the region and could wind up at the center of its uncertain future.

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The Cholla Power Plant stands just down the road from where Baird, 88, has been building a museum to showcase covered wagons, weathered farm implements and other remnants of frontier days. For years the plant powered the local economy, providing jobs and tax revenues for the unincorporated community of Joseph City, its schools and neighboring towns, but now the vapors from its stacks have dissipated.

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These days, change is in the air. Cholla is the latest in a long line of U.S. coal-fired plants to retire, shutting down in March. Arizona Public Service said it had become too costly to operate due to strict environmental regulations. The mandates were aimed at reining in coal-burning utilities, long viewed by scientists as major contributors to warming the planet.

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Last month, however, President Donald Trump reversed course, signing new executive orders aimed at restoring ” beautiful, clean coal ” to the forefront of U.S. energy supplies. He urged his administration to find ways to reopen Cholla and delay the planned retirements of others. As part of his push toward energy independence, Trump has pledged to tap domestic sources — coal included — to fuel a new wave of domestic manufacturing and technology, namely innovations in artificial intelligence.

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In the West, where the vision of far-off politicians sometimes crashes against reality, Baird and many of his neighbors were encouraged that Trump put Cholla in the spotlight, but there’s some skepticism about what the utilities will do with the plants.

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“As many jobs as it gives people, as much help just to our school district right here that we get out of there, we’re hoping that it will come back, too,” said Baird, who used to work at the Cholla plant and has served on the Joseph City School Board.

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Yet, he and others wonder if it’s too late for coal.

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Coal-burning plants retiring

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Just weeks before Trump announced his plans, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected a 65% increase in retirements of coal-fired generation in 2025 compared with last year.

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The largest plant on that list is the 1,800-megawatt Intermountain Power Project in Utah. It’s being replaced by a plant capable of burning natural gas and hydrogen.

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Utilities, already looking to increase capacity, aren’t sure Trump’s orders will lead them back to coal.

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“I think it’s safe to say that those plants that are scheduled or slated to retire are probably still going to move in that direction, for a couple of reasons,” said Todd Snitchler, CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, which represents power plant owners. “One of which is it’s very difficult to plan multimillion- or billion-dollar investments for environmental retrofits and other things on an executive order versus a legislative approach.”