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The Export-Import Bank of the United States (US Exim) has amended its rulebook to allow support for coal-fired power projects, offering a boost to US President Donald Trump’s energy policy but drawing the ire of climate campaigners.

At a meeting on May 1, US Exim’s board unanimously voted to amend its environmental procedures and guidelines by removing restrictions on coal-fired power projects that had been in place since 2013.

The move signals a dramatic reversal in US Exim’s coal policy and follows an executive order signed by President Trump last month directing the agency to ease impediments for mining and electricity-generation projects.

A US Exim spokesperson tells GTR its environmental and social due diligence procedures and guidelines (ESPGs) are now aligned with Trump’s executive order, adding: “Coal-fired power projects will continue to be subject to the remaining provisions of the ESPGs in the same manner as other projects.”

Climate campaigners have slammed US Exim’s decision and say it risks undermining a widespread push to nix export financing for coal – the most polluting of fossil fuels.

Jake Schmidt, senior strategic director at environmental non-profit Natural Resources Defense Council, says US Exim is now the “only export credit agency in the world” that is open to financing coal-fired power.

The agency “stopped doing these projects a decade ago”, he adds.

US Exim’s board adopted revised environmental guidelines in 2013 that blocked it from supporting coal-fired power in most markets, unless projects used carbon capture and storage technology.

The guidelines allowed greater flexibility for poorer countries and did not prohibit financing for mining or US coal exports.

Nonetheless, these rules have now been removed from US Exim’s guidelines and its website.

Kate DeAngelis, deputy director for international programmes at Friends of the Earth US, says the “target market” for coal projects is unclear.

“It’s hard to see the logic in the decision to pursue overseas coal investment when most nations have shifted away from depending on coal. Yet the US Export-Import Bank seems determined to sacrifice taxpayer dollars on the altar of bad ideas. Americans, like most of the world, do not want to support an outdated energy source,” she says.

The world’s other largest export credit agencies have swung away from coal-fired power projects in recent years.

In 2015, participants of the OECD Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits prohibited support for coal power projects unless they used “ultra-supercritical” technology or were smaller plants in the poorest countries.

The OECD Arrangement counts several countries as members including the US, UK, Japan, Korea, Australia, Canada and the EU, with their export credit agencies agreeing to adhere to certain rules and conditions.

In late 2021, members barred all official export credit and tied aid support for new coal-fired power plants, unless they came equipped with carbon capture and storage technology. Up until then, Japan and Korea had remained active backers of coal development in countries such as Vietnam.

From 2007 to 2013, US Exim extended support of about US$7bn for coal mining and power generation projects, including nearly US$1bn for the Sasan power plant in India and US$0.8bn for South Africa’s Kusile project.