See also: “The Trump Budget Cuts Hit Coal Communities and Workers Where It Hurts” by Luke Bassett and Jason Walsh
President Donald Trump’s budget blueprint proposes cuts or the elimination of several federal programs. As shown in the first map below, these programs awarded coal communities and workers a total of more than $115 million in funds for economic development and workforce training in 2016 and 2017. The impact of these Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization, or POWER, Initiative awards extended far beyond the individual recipient organizations due to their focus on regional economic growth and diversification, planning, and collaboration with local and regional stakeholders. For all of President Trump’s rhetoric championing coal miners and the U.S. coal economy, his budget proposal would deal a heavy blow to the communities that often supported him by wide margins.
These maps, created by the Center for American Progress, illustrate the impact of the POWER Initiative in coal country. The first map depicts the amount of POWER Initiative grants awarded to organizations—such as state economic development offices or nonprofit organizations—by county, and the second map shows the multiple counties where POWER grant recipients are performing the work enabled by their awards. Some grants focused resources on specific planning or infrastructure projects in individual communities or counties, most had multicounty or multistate impacts, and a few had national-level research or programmatic benefits. The second map also shows different counties’ levels of support for President Trump in the 2016 election.
For a full-size version of the interactive, click here.
Download the complete Excel worksheet to see data for POWER Initiative funding award recipients, projects, and award amounts.
Luke H. Bassett is the Associate Director of Domestic Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress.