By MATTHEW BROWN, Associated Press

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Federal officials rejected a company’s bid to acquire 167 million tons of coal on public lands in Montana for less than a penny per ton, in what would have been the biggest U.S. government coal sale in more than a decade.

The failed sale underscores a continued low appetite for coal among utilities that are turning to cheaper natural gas and renewables such as wind and solar to generate electricity. Emissions from burning coal are a leading driver of climate change, which scientists say is raising sea levels and making weather more extreme.

President Donald Trump has made reviving the coal industry a centerpiece of his agenda to increase U.S. energy production. But economists say Trump’s attempts to boost coal are unlikely to reverse its yearslong decline.

(AP Graphic)

The Department of Interior said in a Tuesday statement that last week’s $186,000 bid from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) did not meet the requirements of the Mineral Leasing Act.

Agency representatives did not provide further details, and it’s unclear if they will attempt to hold the sale again.

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The leasing act requires bids to be at or above fair market value. At the last successful government lease sale in the region, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy paid $793 million, or $1.10 per ton, for 721 million tons of coal in Wyoming.

President Joe Biden’s administration sought to end coal sales in the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, citing climate change.

A second proposed lease sale under Trump — 440 million tons of coal near an NTEC mine in central Wyoming — was postponed last week following the low bid received in the Montana sale. Interior Department officials have not said when the Wyoming sale will be rescheduled.

NTEC is owned by the Navajo Nation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

In documents submitted in the run-up to the Montana sale, NTEC indicated the coal had little value because of declining demand for the fuel. The Associated Press emailed a company representative regarding the rejected bid.

Most power plants using fuel from NTEC’s Spring Creek mine in Montana and Antelope mine in Wyoming are scheduled to stop burning coal in the next decade, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Spring Creek also ships coal overseas to customers in Asia. Increasing those shipments could help it offset lessening domestic demand, but a shortage of port capacity has hobbled prior industry aspirations to boost coal exports.

By MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Cabinet dealers, interior designers and remodeling contractors in the U.S. hope new tariffs on imported kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and upholstered wooden furniture that kicked in Tuesday will create more business for them and eventually boost domestic production of those products.

But several small business owners in the home improvement industry say they expect some short-term pains from the import taxes: Clients with projects already on the books might balk at having to pay more for the budget-priced cabinets they selected. Potential customers may postpone kitchen and bathroom renovations until costs — and the economy — seem more stable.

“I think the volatility around pricing is damaging to the remodeling industry,” said Allison Harlow, an interior designer in Michigan whose company, Curio Design Studio, creates and builds custom bathrooms and kitchens. “Most people will hear the headline of ‘Kitchen cabinets will go up 50%’ and might just opt out of even reaching out to our company.”

Despite high mortgage rates having depressed sales of existing homes in recent years, a forecast of remodeling activity by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies predicts that homeowner spending on improvements and maintenance will remain steady into the middle of 2026.

Trump calls cheap imports a national security threat

A proclamation that President Donald Trump signed on Sept. 29 cited national security and foreign trade practices as grounds for imposing the tariffs on certain finished wood products and product components.

Of them, imported vanities and kitchen cabinets incurred the steepest tax rates: 25% until the end of the year and 50% starting on New Year’s Day.

Upholstered chairs, seats and sofas also are subject to a 25% worldwide tariff effective Tuesday, with the rate scheduled to increase to 30% on Jan. 1. In addition, the presidential proclamation put a 10% import tax on softwood timber and lumber, which comes from evergreen trees like pine and cedars.

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Softwoods often are used to make furniture and in wood frame construction. Canada is the source of about 85% of the softwood lumber the U.S. imports, or nearly one-quarter of the national supply, according to the National Association of Homebuilders.

Some U.S. trading partners are receiving more favorable treatment when it comes to the furniture and cabinetry tariffs. The tax on U.K. exports was capped at 10%, while the rate for wood products from the European Union and Japan was capped at 15%.

The American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance and other trade and advocacy groups lobbied for tariffs to help offset what they described as a flood of cheap cabinets from countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, China and elsewhere in the decades since more U.S. furniture manufacturing moved offshore.

U.S.-made products tend to cost more but often are of better quality.

A higher bottom line for renovators on a budget

John Lovallo, an analyst at UBS bank, estimates the tariffs on imported cabinets and vanities could add roughly $280 to the average cost of building a single-family home, not enough to sink a project that often carries an overall price tag more than 1,000 times larger than that.

Some business owners say they plan to cover any tariff-related costs for now instead of raising customer prices.

John Dean, founder of Dean Cabinetry in Connecticut, sells cabinets that run the gamut from lower-priced imports to custom models made in his shop. Imported products account for about a third of his sales, but Dean said he does not expect much fallout from the tariffs.

Two of his vendors that he buys imported cabinets from, in China and Vietnam, said they would raise prices by 10% to recoup some of the duty costs.

Dean said he would not charge customers more for now. Since a kitchen remodel is a big ticket item to begin with, and with the costs of building lumber and labor going up, raising cabinet prices might hurt demand, he said.

“My personal perspective is most small- and medium-sized businesses are trying to absorb those costs,” he said.

The wood product tariffs are likely to have a bigger effect on selection than on prices as importers scale back their orders to focus on bestsellers and products with the highest profit margins, according to Jason Miller, a supply chain management professor at Michigan State University.

“It will make importers more selective in the varieties they bring in,” Miller said: “So I think the bigger impact is going to be on the product variety side: Consumers should expect less variety.”

What cabinet companies are expecting

Although the White House said the tariffs were intended to boost domestic production and protect U.S. businesses from predatory trade practices, some cabinet makers say that will be difficult because their supply chains are multinational.

Linq Kitchen, a Los Angeles-area company that designs, builds and installs modern-style kitchen cabinets, uses plywood and melamine panels from Asia and Europe in its projects, co-founder Josh Qian said. A suitable domestic alternative does not exist, he said.

“The kitchen cabinet industry is highly globalized, and even U.S.-based manufacturers depend on imported materials, hardware, and finishes,” Qian said. “These tariffs may sound protective, but in reality, they often raise costs across the entire supply chain.”

At the same time, cabinet companies that don’t sell foreign products or rely on imported components look forward to capturing more business. One is ACO Denver Custom Cabinetry in Denver, Colorado, which enlists Amish, Mennonite, and New German Baptist shops in the Midwest to handcraft custom cabinets.

Andrea Mulkey, the company’s president and co-founder, said her main concern is whether interest in American-made cabinets will grow too quickly.

“It’s hard to predict how much new business might come our way as competitors are affected,” Mulkey said. “We simply couldn’t serve everyone if demand suddenly surged. The real challenge is similar to what we saw post-COVID, when everyone got busy at once, and access to raw materials became strained.”

The Curio Design Studio has its custom cabinets made in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but Harlow worries about the tariffs costing her customers.

“I think it will decrease consumer confidence and create a narrative that the work is going to get inherently more expensive,” Harlow said. “I think we will have to work harder to attract potential clients with messaging of how this blanket statement, ‘Kitchen cabinets will go up 50%,’ does not impact our particular business model.”

By SARA CLINE

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — For nearly three decades, the small town of Mansfield was represented in Louisiana’s congressional delegation by white Republicans, even though its population is about 80% Black and leans heavily Democratic.

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That changed with the election last year of U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, a Black Democrat who was able to win after a newly drawn political map carved out a second Black majority congressional district in the state.

Mansfield Mayor Thomas Jones Jr. said he and others finally feel as if their communities are being represented in the nation’s capital.

“We feel connected, like we have somebody that’s helping us,” he said.

Fields’ seat, and what Jones describes as the benefits of having him in Washington, might disappear depending on how the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a case it will hear Wednesday.

The district Fields represents is the result of a hard-fought battle by civil rights groups representing Black voters in the state. Leaders in predominantly Black communities across the 218-mile-long (350-kilometer-long) district said they feel he finally gives them a voice to represent their needs.

But opponents say the district was unconstitutionally gerrymandered based on race. If the court eventually rules in favor of the plaintiffs, the decision could have a ripple effect far beyond this one district in Louisiana. It potentially will kick out the last major pillar of the 60-year-old Voting Rights Act and prevent Black voters from challenging political maps that dilute their influence.

Court rulings prompt state to draw new district

Louisiana’s new 6th Congressional District, which roughly traces the Red River, runs across the state in a narrow, diagonal path. It stretches from the state capital, Baton Rouge, in southern Louisiana to Shreveport, in the state’s northwest corner.

The district encompasses part or all of 10 parishes. It connects swaths of the state that some argue are vastly different in their priorities, geography, economies — even their gumbo recipes.

Fields is aware of criticism about the district’s snakelike shape that helped make it majority Black, but he argues that it’s contiguous and said all the state’s congressional districts are geographically large, representing both urban and rural areas. More importantly, he said, the district gives “people of color an opportunity, not a guarantee, to elect a candidate of their choice.”

“You tell me I have to jump a certain height, I can work on that. You tell me I’ve got to run faster, I can work on that as well,” he said. “But you tell me I got to be white, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

In 2022, Louisiana’s GOP-dominated Legislature drew congressional boundaries that maintained one Black majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black. A federal judge later struck down the map for violating the Voting Rights Act, and in a major case the following year the Supreme Court found that Alabama had to create its own second majority Black congressional district.

Rather than being forced to have a judge draw its map, the Republican-controlled Louisiana Legislature and its Republican governor passed the current map that created a second Black majority district.

Black residents now account for 54% of registered voters in Fields’ district, up from 24% under the previous boundaries.

A congressman who ‘understands the plight of our people’

Throughout much of the South, older Black residents still remember Jim Crow-era methods around voting such as literacy tests and poll taxes that were designed to disenfranchise them.

In Louisiana, civil rights groups argued that the lack of a second majority minority congressional district was a modern-day effort to dilute Black voting strength. For decades, with a brief exception in the 1990s, Louisiana had just one majority Black district.

“It almost feels like when you only have one Black congressman, that he’s a congressman for everybody that’s African American in the state,” said state Rep. Denise Marcelle, a Black Democrat in East Baton Rouge Parish.

When the second majority Black district was being created, some leaders said it didn’t necessarily matter whether their area was included in it. That it existed at all was more important.

“I’m not married, necessarily, to the current makeup of the maps. … I’m not even married to the representative being Congressman Fields,” said Baton Rouge Councilman Cleve Dunn Jr., a Black Democrat. “We just knew with having a second congressional district represent a minority population, then the person who sits in that seat will represent the values of the Congressional Black Caucus. That’s the important thing.”

Dunn said he had a rapport with the Republican who represented the district before it was redrawn and said he was accessible. But he also saw the world politically in a different way, Dunn said.

“We feel positive that we have a representative who understands the plight of our people, the need of our people, and is going to fight for things for our people,” he said.

Making Congress deliver for the district

Community leaders in Fields’ district listed an array of needs: supplying low-income housing, protecting and expanding Medicaid, keeping rural hospitals open, addressing food deserts and providing money for community centers and other infrastructure.

Some said the benefits have been tangible in the short time Fields has been in office — from helping residents access Social Security benefits to working toward securing federal funding for local projects. Several people mentioned Fields’ visibility in the district.

“The key thing, quite frankly, that I have done in the past nine months is to connect Congress to the people,” Fields said.

Jones, the mayor of Mansfield, said during his nearly 20 years working in local government, he can’t recall a time a congressman held a town hall meeting in his community. Fields has held three.

Among the priorities for the town of 4,000 has been obtaining grant money to fix and replace its ailing sewage system, which backs up in people’s homes and overflows into the streets when it rains.

Jones said he has been asking for funding for five years. While the town has received limited money that was used to make patchwork repairs, he said with Fields’ help it is in line to be approved for a grant next year that he hopes will solve the system’s problems.

It was the first time Jones could recall any member of Congress reaching out to say they might be able to make some appropriations and to ask for a list of the town’s priorities.

“I feel like he’s reaching down to make sure that someone knows our needs and gets us some help,” Jones said.

Associated Press writer Gary Fields in Washington contributed to this report.

By DAMIAN J. TROISE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks slipped in morning trading on Wall Street Tuesday as trade tensions escalate again with China.

The S&P 500 fell 0.5%. The majority of stocks within the index gained ground, but big technology stocks with outsized values fell and offset gains elsewhere.

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The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 76 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:41 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite shed 0.9%.

The slide marks another sharp twist for markets over the last few days. Wall Street tumbled on Friday for its worst day since April and bounced back on Monday for its best day since May. The swings were prompted by shifting trade sentiment between the U.S. and China.

The latest dip follows China’s Commerce Ministry banning dealings by Chinese companies with five subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean, swiping at President Donald Trump’s efforts to rebuild the industry in America. European markets were mostly lower and Asian markets fell.

Technology stocks are particularly sensitive to trade issues involving China. Big chipmakers and other companies rely on China for raw materials and manufacturing. China’s large consumer base is also important for sales growth. Chipmaker Nvidia slumped 3.3%.

The ongoing trade war between the U.S. and the world has been an unpredictable weight on the market. The trade conflict between the U.S. and China is potentially the most economically consequential, owing to those nations’ positions as the two largest economies in the world.

International shipping and shipbuilding have become a major source of friction between Washington and Beijing, with each side imposing new port fees on each others’ vessels. Those fees went into effect on Tuesday.

The U.S. economy has so far dodged any major impact from the frequently shifting U.S. tariff policies. That could change if nations fall back into a cycle of retaliatory tariffs and companies pass along more of the higher costs to consumers.

The U.S. government shutdown has put a halt to the usual economic updates on inflation, consumer spending and employment. Wall Street is looking toward the latest round of company earnings and forecasts to get a better sense of the broader economic picture.

Upcoming profit reports will also help Wall Street gauge the broader market’s value amid criticism that it has become too expensive after prices rose much faster than corporate profits. For stocks to look less expensive overall, either prices need to fall, or companies’ profits need to rise.

JPMorgan Chase slipped 1.3%, despite beating Wall Street’s profit forecasts for its latest quarter. Wells Fargo rose 6.2% after beating analysts’ forecasts.

Health care giant Johnson & Johnson fell 1.4% after announcing that it will separate its orthopedics business into a standalone company.

Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.04% from 4.05% late Friday. Bond markets were closed in the U.S. on Monday for a holiday.

Gold edged 0.4% higher and remains above $4,100 per ounce. The precious metal has soared 57% in 2025 amid a long list of uncertainties, including tariffs and the economy.

AP writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed to this report.