Trump is pouring $75 million into reviving a long-contested coal export in West Oakland, California. It’s part of his nationwide effort to line the pockets of his polluter friends who spent $450 million to influence Trump and Republicans during the last election cycle.
This month, Trump said he was using wartime powers to waste $700 million on coal projects across the United States, claiming that doing so is vital for the country’s “national security”. If Trump really cared about national security, he would invest in a future without deadly resources like coal and fossil fuels, which are overheating our planet, and condemning our beloved cities and coastlines to rising sea levels.
That money could instead be used on renewable energy (which he is spending billions to stop), climate reparations, and building community-led solutions to the climate crisis.
Resistance runs deep in Oakland
West Oakland is bordered by the port, a major highway, and industrial infrastructure that pump pollutants into the air. Toxic waste is buried underneath residents’ homes, and children face high rates of asthma.
Until 1999, the Oakland Army Base was active at the same location, spewing diesel fog. For decades, residents coped as their windows, fruit trees, and bodies would be coated in soot from the fuel.
That makes West Oakland a major frontline fight against environmental injustice. In the home of the revolutionary Black Panthers, more than one third of residents are Black, over a quarter are Latinx, and a fifth are immigrants.
It’s these very residents who have fought for years to keep this exact coal terminal from being built. Now, they’re continuing that fight — and reminding people that greedy coal executives aren’t entirely invincible.
Lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require a full environmental impact report before the port can be approved for coal use. And organizers with No Coal in Oakland and 350 Bay Area are strategizing how they can halt investments in the project, which will require $400 million in total.
While the $75 million the project is receiving from Trump is undoubtedly a lot of money, it isn’t even a quarter of what’s needed to see this project through to completion.
And with that, there’s still hope.
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