President Donald Trump's administration has lost its lawsuit over a Michigan power plant that was slated to be decommissioned last year and replaced by renewable energy.
In 2024, Trump campaigned on a promise to end what he called Joe Biden’s “war on American energy." Trump's vision involved an effort to restore fossil-fuel production and cut environmental rules. A perennial critic of wind energy, Trump has promised to make energy cheaper while also eliminating renewable energy. His familiar “clean coal” rhetoric framed coal plants as a source of jobs, dependable power and U.S. energy dominance.
So, when he entered office, he issued an emergency order mandating that the J.H. Campbell remain operational despite Congress' prior authorization to decommission the plant.
States and environmental groups sued and have been battling in court ever since.
However, on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the Michigan attorney general. It overturns the Department of Energy's "emergency order" to keep the coal plant operating despite the state's plans to close it.
Pennsylvania State University's Institute of Energy and the Environment explained last year that even with Trump's advocacy and help in keeping coal plants afloat, the cost of energy from coal was still two to three times higher than alternatives.
Appeals Court Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel that the DOE's use of the section of the Federal Power Act, which allows emergency orders, “is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop mechanism empowering DOE to address certain electricity supply emergencies."
The judge explained, "That section authorizes the Secretary of Energy (Secretary) to compel generation of electricity only '[d]uring the continuance of any war in which the United States is engaged' or when the Secretary 'determines that an emergency exists by reason of a sudden increase in the demand for electric energy, or a shortage of electric energy or of facilities for the generation or transmission of electric energy, or of fuel or water for generating facilities, or other causes.'"
The law, the appeals court ruled, stemmed from a World War I issue involving a "serious power shortage," which isn't the case in the U.S. today. There was “no ‘emergency’ within the meaning” of the statute, the ruling said.
Pillard also said that by reversing the plant’s “long and carefully planned retirement ... the results are disruptive.
Officials said that keeping the Michigan plant open cost the state at least $135 million in 2025 alone.
There are still more legal battles states face against the Department of Energy as Trump used that emergency power to stop a half-dozen coal-fired plants from closing, the Associated Press reported in April.
