WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said the federal government will fund $180 million in grants for mining schools across the country, including South Dakota Mines, as part of his administration’s goal of rebuilding the U.S. coal industry.

The grants, announced Friday, will include $100 million from the Department of Energy spread across the 14 accredited mining schools in the U.S., while the Department of Defense will dedicate just over $80 million for three major schools of mining and metallurgy: the Colorado School of Mines, South Dakota Mines and Johns Hopkins University.

The Johns Hopkins University grant will help to create a new “multi-material recycling innovation hub,” while South Dakota Mines’ funding will go toward establishing a consortium of workforce development programs alongside the University of Kentucky and Missouri S&T University.

Second Black Hills mining proposal selected for federal fast-track permitting

South Dakota Mines, in Rapid City, said Tuesday it’s slated to receive $25 million to establish the Critical Minerals Merit Scholars Consortium.

“This funding accelerates our longstanding mission of producing highly skilled graduates ready to strengthen domestic critical minerals supply chains,” said Mines President Brian Tande in a news release.

Trump framed the announcement as part of his ongoing effort to rebuild the U.S. coal industry and reopen mines, a central pillar of his energy policy. He has previously sought to shorten the regulation process for new mines and limit the impact of environmental regulations.

Trump stressed the national importance of funding mining programs, given that other countries, such as China, graduate students at a far higher rate. Accredited mining programs at U.S. educational institutions graduate less than 170 mining engineers each year, he said, while China graduates more than 3,000 annually.

“We’re not doing you favors,” Trump told a crowd, including miners and many of the schools’ representatives, at a ceremony at the State Department building in Washington. “We’re doing ourselves favors. We need your industry.”

Half of the U.S. mining workforce is set to retire within the next three years, he added.

“That’s why my administration is making an unprecedented financial commitment to our nation’s mining schools,” Trump said. “It’s going to keep us nice and young and vibrant.”

In addition to increasing support for mining education, Trump announced more than $2 billion worth of new mining contracts and projects.

Those investments include $150 million for Minnesota-based Niron Magnetics to develop rare-earth-free magnets that are domestically produced to support the defense industrial base and $1.4 billion for Sila Nanotechnologies, a California-based firm, to “expand production of silicon-carbon battery anodes and build out a lithium-ion battery cell manufacturing facility to strengthen the supply chains of satellite operations, unmanned aerial systems, and munitions,” according to a White House fact sheet.

Several of the speakers during the ceremony Friday, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, highlighted the national security benefits of increasing U.S. mine production.

“At the core of this is our industrial strength,” Rubio said. “But also our national sovereignty — that we never depend on other countries for things we need to prosper and to defend ourselves as a people.”

The staff of South Dakota Searchlight contributed to this report.