Court Voids Trump Order Keeping Coal Plant Open
Court Voids Trump Order Keeping Coal Plant Open
The News
A federal appeals court struck down the Trump administration's order forcing a Michigan coal plant to keep running, ruling the Energy Department had no legal emergency to justify it.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that the Energy Department exceeded its authority when it used emergency powers to keep the 64-year-old J.H. Campbell coal-fired plant in Michigan open past its scheduled retirement date last year.
The unanimous three-judge panel vacated the order in Michigan v. Department of Energy. Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote the opinion, joined by Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Robert Wilkins.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright had said the plant was needed to ensure reliable electricity in the region. Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, along with a group of environmental organizations, sued to overturn the orders.
The Numbers
Keeping the Michigan plant open cost at least $135 million in 2025 alone, officials said. Three states joined the challenge. The administration has used the same emergency authority to keep about a half-dozen coal plants from closing nationwide.
Timeline
Consumers Energy, the private company that owns the Campbell plant, spends several years developing plans and securing regulatory approval to retire the aging coal unit and replace it with a mix of expanded and new generation. The Michigan Public Service Commission and MISO, the 15-state regional transmission organization, expressly approve the plan after finding the replacement sources would meet reliability criteria and deliver less polluting electricity at lower prices.
Shortly before the plant's scheduled retirement, the Energy Department invokes section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act — a rarely used, short-term federal emergency authority — and orders the coal unit to stay open. Keeping it running costs at least $135 million that year, officials said.
Michigan petitions for review. Illinois and Minnesota file their own petitions, as do environmental groups including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Michigan Environmental Council, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Consumers Energy intervenes to protect its right to recover the costs of the order from ratepayers, an issue pending separately before FERC.
The D.C. Circuit grants the petitions for review and vacates the order, holding there was "no 'emergency' within the meaning" of the statute.
Reactions
Pillard wrote that section 202(c) "is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop," and that by reversing the Campbell plant's "long and carefully planned retirement ... the results are disruptive."
The panel also rejected the department's broader reading of its powers, writing that the administration's position "would empower it to pick its preferred power sources in Michigan — or, presumably, any other state — and order them to operate without regard to the multiple procedural and substantive constraints built into state reliability planning processes."
Ted Kelly, U.S. clean energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the ruling rejected a nationwide effort to force "unreliable, aging coal plants that are bleeding money and polluting communities to stay online." The department's "unlawful actions attempted to make families and businesses in the Midwest wastefully pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a coal plant that should have been shut down over a year ago," Kelly said Friday.
The Energy Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, The Independent reported.
Writing at Reason's Volokh Conspiracy, law professor Jonathan Adler called the decision "a potentially significant rebuke" of one of the more controversial elements of the administration's energy policy.
What's Next
Adler wrote that, given the panel's makeup and the importance of the issue to the administration, he suspects a petition for en banc rehearing or for Supreme Court review will soon follow.
Emergency orders covering plants in other states remain in effect for now; the Energy Department reissues them every 90 days. Earthjustice attorney Michael Lenoff said the group will challenge future orders at other plants.
Separately, FERC proceedings over who pays the costs racked up under the Campbell order — and how those costs are allocated among ratepayers — are still pending.
More
Section 202(c) lets the Energy Department briefly compel generation or interconnection during a war the United States is engaged in, or when the secretary determines an emergency exists because of a sudden increase in demand, a shortage of electric energy or generating facilities, or a shortage of fuel or water for those facilities.
The court said that until this case, the federal government had used the authority to address short-term crises such as blackouts caused by war or extreme weather — not as a substitute for states' long-term reliability planning. States, the panel noted, have for almost a century held authority under the Federal Power Act to regulate in-state power plants, while the federal government regulates wholesale marketing and interstate transmission.
Similar emergency orders cover coal plants in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Washington, Colorado and Florida. Critics say the orders raise ratepayer bills and add air and water pollution that could otherwise have been avoided.
Poll
Should the Energy Department be able to force retiring power plants to stay open?
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