Obscure, 12-Year-Old Port of Oakland Coal Battle Could End Up Bankrupting City of Oakland

The article was originally published on https://sfist.com/2025/11/24/obscure-12-year-old-port-of-oakland-coal-battle-could-end-up-bankrupting-city-of-oakland/The City of Oakland signed a development deal for a coal-shipping terminal in 2013, and then backed out over environmental protests. Now that’s coming back to haunt them, as legal rulings against their flip-flop could cost the city hundreds of millions. The Port of Oakland is the ninth-busiest port in the United States of America, and an important economic lifeline for the City of Oakland. But being in the politically far-left Bay Area, the Port of Oakland is often a proxy backdrop for political battles, like the AB-5 trucker blockade in 2022, or the shipping of military supplies to Israel brouhaha over the last couple of years. One p