Wyoming’s two congressional Republicans say they will not let California block the state’s coal from reaching international markets, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last month aimed at halting a planned coal export terminal in Oakland before it opens.
In a joint opinion piece published by Fox News, Sen. Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Harriet Hageman — Wyoming’s lone member of the U.S. House — say the Oakland terminal would be the West Coast’s first coal export facility, giving Wyoming miners direct access to overseas buyers. President Trump backed the project this summer with $75 million through the Defense Production Act.
According to the lawmakers, California Democrats introduced the bill targeting the terminal immediately after Trump’s funding announcement, with the bill’s author stating she intended both to block coal shipments and to defy the president.
Lummis and Hageman write that the Oakland project had already cleared California’s environmental review process and drawn more than $240 million in investment from California taxpayers. They say the project also survived years of litigation, which developers won each time, after which the City of Oakland moved forward with development. The new state law, they argue, effectively overturned that outcome after the fact.
“That should alarm anyone who builds anything in California, whatever they think of coal,” the lawmakers wrote, warning that if a permit can be voided retroactively because officials dislike the product or the president who supports it, no approval in the state is secure — whether for an oil refinery, a manufacturing plant, or a housing development.
Same-Day Veto on High-Speed Rail Oversight
The lawmakers note that on the same day he signed the coal bill, Newsom vetoed separate legislation that would have sped up the hiring of auditors for California’s high-speed rail project. They point out that California has spent $15 billion over 18 years on the rail line without laying a single mile of track.
The project was originally pitched to voters as a $33 billion line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco by 2020. Current cost estimates range from $126 billion to $231 billion, with completion not expected until 2040, according to the op-ed. Lummis and Hageman also note that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revoked $4 billion in federal grants for the project last year, a decision Newsom challenged in court and lost, though he continues to defend the spending.
Wyoming’s Position
Lummis and Hageman say Wyoming sits atop more than 600 years of coal reserves and argue that rising electricity demand across Asia means those countries will burn coal regardless of California’s policies — making the question simply whose coal gets sold.
“Wyoming will not sit quietly while California politicians attempt to shut our energy producers out of global markets,” the lawmakers wrote, adding that the state is prepared to use “every tool at our disposal, including legal action,” to defend its coal industry.
The two Republicans frame the dispute as extending beyond coal, arguing California risks exporting its regulatory “dysfunction” to other states that depend on its ports for trade.
