The Pulitzer Center's support for this reporting was made possible through the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
This big-picture reporting project focuses on a local coal-powered power plant in West Michigan that President Trump ordered kept open just days before a long-scheduled shutdown in 2025. Reporting will recount the well-documented health hazards the plant poses, and the long-standing company plan to close it and replace it with other power sources.
In addition, this project will examine how the shutdown plan came under attack ideologically locally, and how the plant became one in a series of other coal-powered plants nationwide that Trump ordered to remain open. This project will explore the interests behind Trump's pampering of the coal industry, which is a predominant theme in his administration.
