Kentucky coal production and employment have declined in recent years to historic lows, a trend that has continued in 2026 despite the Trump administration’s efforts to boost domestic use.
New data from the Energy and Environment Cabinet shows the commonwealth’s overall coal production rose less than 1% during the first quarter of the year.
Production declined 5.5% in Eastern Kentucky, the data show, while it increased 5% in Western Kentucky.
Coal employment statewide fell almost 13%, with the number of jobs at 3,500. That’s about 500 less than in the first quarter of 2025. In 1990, Kentucky had more than 29,000 coal workers.
Natural gas and, in more recent years, renewables have exerted pressure on the coal industry.
Since early 2025, the Trump administration has taken a number of steps to help coal, however. It’s rolled back environmental regulations, ordered plants to stay open longer than planned and canceled tax credits for wind and solar.
In February, the deputy administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency came to Kentucky to announce the repeal of more stringent Biden-era pollution rules.
Yet those efforts do not appear to be slowing coal’s decline in Kentucky. Nationwide, solar outpaced coal for the first time in May.
The federal government has also slowed the release of industry data. U.S. Energy Information Administration data on coal production in the first three months of 2026 was not included as usual in the agency’s Quarterly Coal Report, published July 1.
When asked by WEKU, the agency said the data would be available by the end of the week.
That holdup in federal data also delayed an update of Kentucky’s coal dashboard.
A new county on top
Although Eastern Kentucky coal continues to slide, Western Kentucky coal shows more stable trends. In the first quarter, Henderson County became the state’s top producer, due to the opening of a new mine last year.
For several years, Union County was the commonwealth’s leading producer. It now ranks third, behind Hopkins and Henderson counties.
Despite the increase in production, coal employment in Western Kentucky fell by nearly 100 jobs from the first quarter of 2025.
In Eastern Kentucky, which still has more coal jobs overall, the decline was even steeper. The region lost 400 jobs from the first quarter of 2025, including 200 in Pike County alone.
That’s at least in part due to the bankruptcy of coal operator Clintwood JOD LLC.
In March, one of Clintwood’s laid-off workers sued the company in federal court, alleging it did not give the 60 days notice required by law when it terminated about 300 employees. A trial will take place in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in London on Nov. 18, according to court filings.
Federal intervention
In the meantime, the Trump administration has aggressively pursued pro-coal policies. Plants in Michigan, Indiana, Colorado, Washington and Florida have been kept online instead of retiring as planned.
The U.S. Department of Energy has also granted hundreds of millions of dollars to power plants and utilities. That includes $51 million to the Mitchell plant in West Virginia, jointly owned by Kentucky Power and Wheeling Power, to replace a cooling tower with structural problems.
It also includes $90 million to East Kentucky Power to enable its Spurlock and Cooper plants to use natural gas in addition to coal.
Outside Kentucky, utilities are making big investments in electricity generation, just not in coal.
Monday, American Electric Power said it would seek approval from Indiana regulators to build a 1,500-megawatt natural gas plant at Rockport, just across the Ohio River from Kentucky.
The Rockport Energy Center, which is scheduled to begin operating in 2030, would replace a coal plant on the same site. AEP is the parent company of Kentucky Power.
Another AEP subsidiary, Indiana Michigan Power, is scheduled to retire the Rockport coal plant in 2028.
