The hum of the coal-fired power plant rises over its namesake town. It forms the backdrop to Colstrip’s clean streets, baseball fields, and well-kept library. That hum is the sound of the town’s lifeblood – coal.
“ We want to see these units, I'd like to see it run forever, quite frankly,” Yates says.
Stacey Yates is the union rep at the Colstrip plant where his father worked before him. And now his son does too.
Coal powers the plant and it powers this town of 2-thousand people. Property taxes from the plant fund a large share of the city budget. The average household income here is nearly a quarter higher than the rest of the state.
“Those turbines spinning are our livelihoods, for everybody. So both these units are gone. And then this town is pretty much gonna be a ghost town,” Yates says.
Colstrip’s prosperity has been on thin ice for years. Two of the plant's four smokestacks, or units, closed in 2020. Hundreds of other plants have closed across the United States since coal production peaked in 2007 and thousands of jobs have disappeared.
Yates blames part of that decline on federal policy.
“They put regulation, regulation, regulation onto coal units,” Yates says.
The Biden Administration put stricter rules on coal plant emissions and invested heavily in renewable energy. Coal has the highest rate of planet-warming emissions of any power source.
President Trump campaigned on rolling back regulations. This spring, he signed a slate of executive orders to revive the coal industry. His administration also granted Colstrip an exemption from installing new technology to filter air toxins like arsenic and lead.
“We're taking historic action to help American workers, miners, families, and consumers. We're ending Joe Biden's war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all,” Trump said.
The executive orders aim to speed up permitting, expand mining access on federal land, and push back against local and state climate policies that restrict coal use.
Trump took similar measures to try to save coal during his first term, but the industry continued to decline, with coal-fired production falling 30% over the course of his presidency.
James Coleman researches energy law at the University of Minnesota. He says given the economic realities, the Trump administration’s opportunity to help the industry lies in keeping existing plants open. But, he says, it’s hard to imagine a larger resurgence of coal.
“ On the margins, there's absolutely things that the Trump administration can do to boost the coal industry. But it's not like it can just roll back the clock 10 or 20 or 40 years,” Coleman says.
Coleman says few policymakers today are calling for a return to the smog-filled skies and unchecked emissions that came with that era.
Plus, coal faces economic challenges. Increased environmental regulations have made coal more expensive, but that’s not the only factor.
“One is low-price natural gas, and increased use of renewables have been particularly economically challenging for sources like coal,” Coleman says.
Fracking, a method for extracting oil and gas from shale, has led to a huge increase in the domestic supply of natural gas. That drives down prices. And large-scale wind and solar energy now also outcompete coal on price.
At the Colstrip plant, mechanic Kyle Burns earns a six-figure salary working on the scrubbers – systems that help filter toxins from the air. He grew up in Lame Deer, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation and came back to southeastern Montana after serving three tours in Iraq.
“As far as job security and everything, haven't been laid off. It's been steady and great pay and benefits,” Burns says.
Burns supports Trump’s efforts to delay the new pollution rules but says he’d still like to see cleaner systems installed eventually.
“ I think it would be a good thing. I mean, the cleaner energy that we produce, the better, in the long run,” Burns says.
For him, that future depends on coal’s role in keeping the power grid stable — especially during high demand in Montana winters.
“There were times where it’d be like 30 below out and we would have all our units running full load because people needed that power,” Burns says.
Burns says people may not always appreciate where that power comes from, but he feels Trump does. And he hopes the president’s efforts will help coal hold on.