Appalachian Power will invest close to $25 billion dollars in new and existing power generation in West Virginia.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he is directing hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. coal power plants and to ship the carbon-intensive fuel to Asia, with most of the funding coming from Cold War-era emergency powers.

More than 356 billion tons of coal resources lie beneath federally owned land in the contiguous United States, according to a government report, whose new and comprehensive findings could escalate mining in those areas, most of them in the West.

On November 13, 1909, a fire swept through the Cherry Mine in northwestern Illinois, killing 259 men and boys.

Republican lawmakers in Ohio are circulating a plan to keep coal plants open, even if an owner has a contractual obligation to close a facility. And they hope to pass it fast, before the new Democratic governor-elect, Amy Acton, takes office.

Of 5,247 coal mining permits nationwide, fewer than half have produced coal since 2000, and only 35 percent are in reclamation.