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Soon-to-expire tax credits have done their job, putting wind power on a footing that makes it cheaper than coal-fired electricity and extended its influence from landlocked states to coastal regions. 

Newly-elected members of Congress are calling for aggressive federal investment in job-creating initiatives that include energy efficiency and weatherization programs, wetlands and soil restoration, sustainable agriculture and renewables-based grid modernization.

Costly initiatives to develop workable, economic technology to capture carbon from coal-fired generation have come up short as renewable energy and natural gas have made such work all but irrelevant.

Preparing for economic transition is the best way to head off corporate fear-based campaigns that “companies can hold over communities and workers,” said one speaker at a Montana coal conference.

A consortium of 17 companies have pledge $100 million in public-service funding for communities affected by the shale-energy boom. Funds are earmarked for schools, healthcare, roads, housing and business development.

Commentary: “Coal communities are caught between maintaining the status quo or making a hard shift to a different future. That kind of shift has not always been good for workers.”

An Indiana utility’s rapid evolution on energy policy signals broader change on the way: “That this shift happened over the course of just three years is remarkable,” writes one analyst.

Attorneys general in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland and the District of Columbia say they will fight Trump administration policies against clean energy expansions that have created hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The coal industry is trying to catch up to market changes 20 years too late; skeptics say federal “next-generation” coal research is “a far way off from the current reality.”

Twenty “ready-made” mine reclamation projects in Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia still lack crucial federal funding that could create 540 jobs and generate $83 million in local economic activity.