MITT ROMNEY’S charge that America had declared “war on coal” may not have won him last year’s presidential election. Yet this once-mighty industry is struggling, squeezed by the plummeting cost of natural gas and a torrent of tough new environmental rules. Last year 37.4% of American electricity production came from coal, down from 48.5% in 2007. The Energy Information Administration expects a slight rise this year as gas prices begin to creep up. But further restrictions on power-station emissions are expected, and the shale revolution is marching on. If coal has a future, it is surely elsewhere.

For many, that means Asia. Demand for coal imports is growing in post-Fukushima Japan, as it decreases its reliance on nuclear power; in India, where domestic supplies cannot keep up with the growing economy; and, most tantalisingly, in China, which burns almost half the world’s coal, and which became a net importer of the stuff in 2009.

Such facts make mouths water in the Powder River Basin, straddling Wyoming and Montana (see map), where more than 40% of America’s coal is mined. Some already makes its way to Asia, mainly via Canadian ports. But exporters want to build four new terminals on the western shores of the United States—two apiece in Oregon and Washington—to send up to 130m tonnes more a year. The largest, the 1,500-acre (600-hectare) Gateway Pacific Terminal near Bellingham in northern Washington, would handle up to 48m tonnes of coal a year, as well as up to 6m tonnes of other dry bulk, such as grain.

Energy wars in America’s West are nothing new. But the rancour aroused by the coal-export proposal has become as toxic as a four-chimney belcher. Coal states accuse coastal ones of high-minded NIMBYism. Campaigners say corporations have a primeval attitude to the environment. Cities and counties lock horns over jobs and trade. Everyone accuses everyone else of bad faith, basic innumeracy and, in some cases, black ops.

Local objections focus on the trains that would carry coal to the Gateway Pacific Terminal. At capacity, 18 trains a day would run to and from the facility: nine bearing coal and nine returning empty to the mines. BNSF Railway, one of the project’s backers, says little new rail infrastructure would be needed, as traffic remains below its 2006 peak. Sceptics doubt that, and say the bill will be dumped on taxpayers.

Even without new tracks there is plenty to object to. The coal trains would rattle through central Seattle (the empties could return via other tracks, says BNSF), potentially gumming up roads already groaning with congestion. “I don’t want this terminal built,” says Mike McGinn, the mayor. In Bellingham, a group called Whatcom Docs (named for the surrounding county) worries about trains spewing diesel particulates. Others fret about coal dust flying off the trains; the Sierra Club, an environmental NGO, is threatening to sue BNSF for polluting Washington’s waterways. Press the naysayers, though, and you find deeper concerns. “Shipping coal to Asia is about as innovative as a tree stump,” says Reuven Carlyle, a Washington legislator who thinks the state’s future lies in emulating the high-tech achievements of Amazon and Boeing. The terminal’s main local foes call themselves Power Past Coal. Shovelling millions of tonnes of the stuff to China every year, say campaigners, will lower prices and encourage it to prolong its reliance on the filthy fuel. Yet Richard Morse of Supercritical Capital, an energy consultancy, argues you would have to model the energy sectors of at least 15 countries to know whether fresh coal exports would increase global carbon emissions. The focus on China is “myopic”, he says, but even there it is hard to contend that new imports would affect energy policy. For one thing, China’s domestic coal market is so big that a modest decline in import prices would be unlikely to make much difference at the margin. For another, China’s energy strategy is not particularly price-sensitive. “The Chinese are trying everything they can to get off coal,” says Mr Morse. “But the rate at which they can do so is maxed out.” The lights must stay on in Shanghai and Shenzhen. Closer to home, Bellingham desperately needs the “good union jobs” that SSA Marine, the terminal operator, would provide, says Mark Lowry, a local union rep who professes no love for coal. SSA says the terminal would provide up to 4,430 direct and indirect jobs during building and 1,250 after that (opponents say these numbers are puny, and dispute them). SSA Marine employees will earn about $100,000 a year, far higher than the local average.

But the terminal must first survive an extensive environmental review, conducted by a federal agency and local officials. Like everything else, its scope has been hotly contested. The governors of Oregon and Washington have urged the federal government to look at the global climate implications. Construction will not begin until 2016 at the earliest. More or less the only thing the two sides can agree on is that the row will continue until then.