FAQ: the proposed coal terminal and the campaign to stop it

• Who wants to build a coal terminal in West Oakland? Why?

  Local developers, coal-mining companies in Western states (e.g., Utah, Wyoming, and Montana), and U.S. President Donald J. Trump.

  The Port of Oakland was approached in December 2013 by developers associated with the fossil fuels industry who hoped to construct a coal and fossil fuels export facility at the 50-acre Howard Terminal site. One of those developers, Bowie Resource Partners — a coal mining company now rebranded as Wolverine Fuels — projected exports of 4 million tons of coal and 1 million tons of petroleum coke from Oakland’s waterfront. The Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to reject those proposals on February 27, 2014.

  Also in December 2013, local Oakland developer Phil Tagami stated in his own newsletter that his company, California Capital & Investment Group (CCIG) “is publicly on record as having no interest or involvement in the pursuit of coal-related operations at the former Oakland Army Base.” Four months later, however, he cut a secret deal with four Utah counties to export coal through Oakland, a deal that only came to public attention in April 2015. As the developer for the project known as the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT), Tagami and his business partners have a profit motive for building the coal terminal.

  Coal mining companies — and the state and local government bodies that reflect their interests — are eager to open a path to Asian markets for coal they can no longer sell in the U.S. Their domestic markets have cratered, due to the diminished and diminishing use of the filthiest fossil fuel to generate electricity as coal-fired power plants are replaced with less costly and more sustainable energy sources such as wind and solar, as well as liquified natural gas (LNG).

  U.S. President Donald J. Trump, as part of the quid pro quo he offered the fossil fuel industry CEOs during his 2024 campaign, is fixated on reviving the moribund coal industry: in June 2026 Trump announced a $700,000,000 bailout for more than a dozen struggling or shuttered coal-fired power plants, two new coal plants, and $75,000,000 earmarked toward construction of a coal terminal on West Oakland’s waterfront.

• Is there a quick summary of the West Oakland coal terminal issue?

  You’ll find a brief summary and timeline on this No Coal in Oakland website page: About the No Coal Campaign.

• Exactly what do developers propose to build on the West Oakland waterfront?

  Design documents for the developers’ proposed coal terminal have yet to be made public as of August 2026. Some preliminary documents, current in 2017, can be accessed on this page aggregating information about the proposed terminal, but “link rot” on the City of Oakland’s website limits access to some of the cited resources.

• Didn't the City of Oakland already ban coal? Why is this still an issue?

  In 2016, the City of Oakland passed an ordinance banning storage and handling of coal in the city, and a resolution applying that ordinance to the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal (OBOT) project. Developer Phil Tagami and his business partners subsequently sued the City, and were able to have the resolution nullified (but not the ordinance) in Federal court; then, in a separate case in State court, to win an extension of time to meet contractually-required construction milestones for the terminal they proposed to build at the West Gateway, a portion of the decommissioned Oakland Army Base. A month-by-month timeline of this saga is maintained on this website’s Our Campaign page. More about the court cases can be found in the Lawsuits FAQ.

• Why is building a coal terminal in West Oakland an Environmental Justice issue?

  The proposed coal terminal in West Oakland would have devastating health impacts for anyone in the path of miles-long coal trains (snaking along the Bay Shore from Martinez to Oakland). Because it would impact neighborhoods adjacent to the rail route hardest, and because these neighborhoods are predominantly peopled by communities of color and working-class families, Environmental Justice is central to the question of building a coal terminal adjacent to the Bay Bridge toll plaza. Neighborhoods like West Oakland are often dismissed by industry and their political allies as “sacrifice zones” when it comes to building freeways, ports, and industrial infrastructure. It is a devastating injustice when communities and people are “sacrificed” for industry & profit. More information can be found on this website’s Environmental Justice page.

• Is there such a thing as 'clean coal'?

  “Clean coal” is a marketing or political term, and doesn’t mean what it attempts to imply. Saying that coal is “EPA compliant” does not mean it is environmentally neutral. Simply put, mining, transporting, and burning more coal of any kind makes air quality, respiratory illness rates, climate change and other problems worse. Much worse. The article Clean coal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be on the Project Drawdown website explains why you “shouldn’t be fooled by the rebrand.”

• Will covered coal cars and a completely-enclosed export terminal prevent coal dust from poisoning West Oakland and communities along the rail route bringing coal to the Oakland waterfront?

  Concrete design plans for the OBOT project have not yet been made public. Preliminary plans specific to a coal terminal in West Oakland did not undergo environmental review. At this point, we only have vague descriptions and rumors from the developers about how a coal terminal on Oakland’s waterfront would be designed and how it would operate. As of Fall 2026, there are no enforceable regulations that would require the facility to utilize specific technologies or pollution controls. The developers are currently under no legal obligation to cover any part of the facility, and have demonstrated shameless evasion (and, arguably, dishonesty), including long-running dishonesty about what commodities OBOT would ship. When it comes time to build, it would be easy for developers to shelve “state of the art” designs cited when they were touting the project’s supposed benefits — to reduce cost of construction and operation, for example — and to face no consequences for doing so.

  This is among the key reasons it is essential the project undergo a full review, resulting in an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that takes into account commodities that would actually be shipped if OBOT becomes operational, including current projections of ten to twelve million tons of coal per year. As of Fall 2026, despite developers’ highly misleading claims, no EIR has evaluated the impact of shipping huge quantities of coal through a West Oakland marine export terminal.

• What about the jobs issue? How many jobs will Oakland lose if the proposed coal terminal isn't built?

  A mind-boggling range of job numbers have been claimed by developers and promoters of the OBOT project, including a ludicrous and unsubstantiated claim that 12,000 jobs could be lost if the marine terminal does not export coal. Another analysis found in 2012 that 117 permanent, onsite jobs would be created to operate the terminal. Check out the Jobs – Facts & Fiction page on this website to find out more about what’s true and what’s false about these wildly disparate claims.

• Where can I find a timeline of the No Coal campaign?

  No Coal in Oakland maintains a month-by-month summary timeline, with links to detailed information, on the Our Campaign page of this website.

• Where has the coal terminal issue been covered in the media?

  No Coal in Oakland maintains a long, but necessarily incomplete, log of coverage of our campaign on the Media Reports & Commentary page of this website.

• Is the old Q&A (circa 2015-16) still available?

  You can still access a PDF of the annotated version of the campaign’s 2015 Q&A.