The Trump Administration Forces Power Plants to Continue Burning Fossil Fuels

In the Trump administration’s latest attempt to try to prop up costly, polluting fossil fuel-burning power plants, the Department of Energy (DOE) ordered two power plants to keep operating, overturning long-time plans to retire the aging, polluting power plants.

The orders, which came just days or hours before each power plant was scheduled to retire, are part of an unprecedented power grab to override the decisions made in the interest of customers by power companies, grid operators, state utility regulators, and state legislators.

The DOE ordered the J.H. Campbell coal plant in West Olive, MI and two units of the Eddystone oil and gas power plant in Eddystone, PA to remain open for the summer.

Under Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, a statute originally passed in the 1930s, Congress gave the DOE a last-resort option to solve energy reliability issues during emergencies such as hurricanes, wildfires, and extreme winter storms. In these recent moves, however, the administration is falsely invoking emergency powers in order to evade the usual legal and regulatory decision-making process.

These unprecedented actions threaten to keep some of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest power plants operating unnecessarily and could end up costing utility customers millions, especially if the orders get extended or renewed. Earthjustice will continue to fight on behalf of consumers and communities to resist this abuse of power.

Sham ‘Emergency’ Order Will Cost Utility Customers

DOE ordered the Campbell plant to continue operation just eight days before the power plant was scheduled to retire, as long-agreed to and planned for in a 2022 settlement that let the aging power plant substantially reduce its spending on major maintenance and capital projects needed for long term operation. The Campbell plant remains the largest source of air pollution and climate-harming emissions in western Michigan.

As part of the 2022 settlement, Consumers Energy (the owner of the power plant) already purchased another power plant to make up for the generation previously provided by Campbell, extended the lives of two other generating units, and is in the process of building or acquiring significant amounts of wind, solar, and storage resources. Continuing to operate an unnecessary and expensive coal plant threatens to saddle Consumers Energy customers with increased utility bills and dirtier air and is counter to the state’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2040.

In addition to usurping the judgment of Michigan regulators, the utility, the state Attorney General, and numerous other parties who negotiated and approved the 2022 settlement, the Department of Energy order, if allowed to stand, will potentially cost Michiganders millions of dollars or more in order to further the Trump administration’s agenda to prop up expensive, dirty, and uncompetitive coal resources.

There is no evidence to support an emergency declaration. Consumers Energy, the Michigan Public Service Commission, and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) have all concluded that there is no reliability risk created by Campbell’s retirement. The DOE order cites the most recent NERC assessment, but takes its conclusions out of context. NERC found an elevated risk of needing to make operational changes only by making “extreme” assumptions, and even then, confirmed that the risk can be addressed with available tools such as demand response and transfers of power from neighboring areas. Similarly, the MISO auction results “demonstrated sufficient capacity” by the order’s own admission.

Instead of addressing a genuine need, the order is a pretext for the Trump administration to justify propping up expensive and polluting coal generation. As Consumers Energy and the Michigan Public Service Commission found in the 2022 settlement, however, the planned retirement of the Campbell plant would save ratepayers money and reduce the public health impacts caused by burning coal. The cost of operating coal power plants has only gone up since then — and is likely to be heightened at the Campbell plant, where preparations were already well underway for the plant’s planned retirement.

Forcing Campbell Coal Plant to Operate is a Costly, Illegal Abuse of DOE’s Authority

There is no legal basis or precedent for the administration to grant the Secretary of Energy sole authority to force a retiring power plant to remain open. DOE’s role, as designated under Federal Power Act Section 202(c), is limited:

• Section 202(c) only applies to wartime situations or certain unexpected emergencies such as hurricanes or wildfires that pose an immediate threat.
• The law limits the solutions that the Secretary can order to “temporary interconnections” and directives concerning the flow of electricity. Longer-term issues and planning decisions are made in processes before state commissions and other bodies.
• If an order conflicts with environmental requirements, the law requires that such conflicts be minimized as much as possible and limits the order to only the hours necessary to meet the emergency and serve the public interest.

In overstepping these restrictions, DOE’s orders will not hold up in court. And DOE’s orders cannot substantiate an “emergency” that does not exist.

Myriad planning processes and operational protocols exist to ensure that the power stays on. States, for example, often require utilities to conduct Integrated Resource Plans that look years into the future in order to plan for resource mix and adequate total supply to meet demand under a range of scenarios. Depending on the region, states or regional grid operators ensure there is enough excess generation to meet “planning reserve margins.” Additionally, NERC works with stakeholders to develop reliability standards, which are binding and enforceable once approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

In addition to these proactive planning measures, grid operators conduct reliability studies whenever a generator announces it plans to shut down. If the study reveals that a grid reliability issue would be caused by the plant’s retirement, it explores solutions to the reliability issue, including temporarily allowing the plant to operate with a special agreement, filed at FERC, to recoup its costs.

In light of the robust, multi-layered system to ensure electric system reliability, especially in recent decades, DOE has generally used its 202(c) authority only in truly time-sensitive emergencies affecting the power system. As a result, previous orders have recognized that extra generation is likely only needed for limited hours, and usually include requests that consumers reduce their electricity usage. These orders insist that utilities use tools with less or no environmental harm before authorizing operation of generation under narrowly tailored emergency circumstances. In contrast, by directing the broader continued operation of dirty fossil fuel plants like Campbell without an actual emergency situation, the Trump DOE disregards state policy, energy affordability, and the limits imposed on its authority by Congress.

DOE’s order to force ongoing operation of the Eddystone plant makes the political agenda motivating these claims of “emergency” more explicit. The order states that DOE plans to evaluate Eddystone again in the future, under a yet-to-be-published methodology for evaluating power plants’ contributions to the grid required by executive order. But DOE cannot use a poorly substantiated Section 202(c) to halt a power plant’s retirement merely as a placeholder until DOE can contrive a new rationale. The only energy emergency in the U.S. is the failure to transition fast enough to clean energy. This administration has tried to throttle domestic energy production by pausing all wind energy projects, halting funding for hundreds of clean energy projects across the U.S., and proposing to gut DOE’s budget for offices that administer programs for solar and wind energy, energy efficiency, and the office that helps upgrade America’s electric infrastructure.

Coal use has been falling for decades. Forcing power companies to run polluting fossil fuel plants they do not need will not only harm our health, the climate, and communities, but also our wallets. Renewable sources of energy are now less expensive than coal for almost every coal plant in the country. These orders and the President’s executive order on grid reliability threaten a political takeover of the electricity grid, granting the Secretary of Energy the sole authority to override markets, states, FERC, and NERC to bolster uneconomic and polluting fossil fuels.

Solar, wind and geothermal recently generated 25% of American electricity, with wind supplying more than 50TWh that month. Our federal government should throw its weight behind modernizing our electric grid and ensuring the U.S. leads in the development of clean energy technologies, not forcing power plants built in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s to continue operating.