WASHINGTON (AP) — In a defeat for the Trump administration, a federal court ruled Friday that the Energy Department exceeded its authority when it forced a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to stay open past its scheduled retirement date last year.
Energy Minister Chris Wright said the 64-year-old JH Campbell power station was essential to providing reliable power to the region and he was using emergency power to keep it running. Environmental groups and three states – Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota – went to court to try to overturn the order to keep the plant open.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the states and groups, saying there was no true emergency under the law.
The section of the Federal Power Act that allows emergency orders “is essentially a narrow, last resort,” appeals court Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel. The use of emergency powers “only works when there is a need for immediate, essentially extreme measures, and the circumstances require action, particularly from the Department of Energy, rather than action by the state or states responsible for the adequacy of resources,” she added.
Canceling the “long and carefully planned decommissioning” of the Campbell plant is “devastating,” Pillard wrote.
Critics called the Trump administration’s order an “illegal political stunt”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she was pleased that the appeals court “overturned the Department of Energy’s order, which had no basis in fact.”
Nessel, a Democrat, said her office “fights this illegal political stunt every step of the way, and this decision proves what we have said all along: This administration does not have the right to invent false emergencies to circumvent the rule of law to the detriment of the interests of Michiganders.”
The Michigan case is one of several legal disputes emerging across the country as the Trump administration uses emergency powers to force a half-dozen coal-fired power plants to stay open.
Critics say the orders, which also apply to plants in Indiana, Colorado, Florida and Washington, increase taxpayer bills and increase avoidable air and water pollution. A Pennsylvania oil and gas plant was also ordered to keep its turbines running as a hedge against power shortages on the mid-Atlantic grid.
President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency in a January 2025 executive order, citing increased demand as a result of artificial intelligence and the growth of data centers.
Energy Department says ordering coal plant saved lives during peak weather events
An Energy Department spokesman said emergency orders, including in Campbell, “prevented blackouts and likely saved hundreds of lives during peak demand last year,” especially during severe winter storms in late January and early February.
At the height of the storm, coal production in the affected regions increased 25% from the previous year, spokeswoman Emily Matthews said. The Campbell plant produced more than 650 megawatts of power — enough for hundreds of thousands of homes — every day from Jan. 21 to Feb. 1, she said.
The Energy Department “will continue to protect the energy security of all Americans,” she said.
It cost about $259 million to keep the Michigan plant running after it was decommissioned in May 2025, according to new financial reports. Opponents of the order say those losses will likely fall on families and businesses in the Midwest.
Consumers Energy, which operates the Campbell plant, said it is reviewing the court’s decision. In the meantime, the utility will continue to operate the plant in accordance with a recent Department of Energy order that extends the directive through mid-November, spokesman Brian Wheeler said in a statement.
Environmentalists say they will continue to fight the administration’s orders
Ted Kelly, U.S. clean energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the court’s decision rejected the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to force “unreliable, aging coal plants that waste money and pollute communities to stay online.”
“The Department of Energy’s illegal actions were an attempt to force families and businesses in the Midwest to wastefully pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a coal-fired power plant that should have been closed more than a year ago,” Kelly said Friday. The Campbell plant and other legacy facilities are “incredibly expensive, hazardous to our health and frequently fail,” he said.
Sanjay Narayan, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, called the decision a victory for Midwestern families who are “paying to keep this old, expensive, dirty power plant running.”
The Trump administration is “doing everything it can to try to prop up dirty and expensive fossil fuels at public expense. This reckless program will not succeed,” Narayan said. “We will continue to fight other illegal expansions across the country.”
___
Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.
Matthew Daly, Associated Press
FILE – The JH Campbell coal-fired power plant operates in West Olive, Mich., Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Julian Trejo Bax, File) — Associated Press
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks after the signing of the US-Venezuela oil agreement at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, September 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey) – Associated Press
FILE – An aerial photo of Consumer Energy’s JH Campbell generating complex in Ottawa County, Mich., Sept. 21, 2024. (Joel Bissell/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP, File) – Associated Press
