A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Department of Energy exceeded its authority when it ordered an aging coal-fired power plant in Michigan to stay open past its planned retirement date, delivering a legal defeat to the Trump administration, according to Grist.
Federal Court Rejects Energy Department Order for Michigan Coal Plant
The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the administration lacked a true emergency to justify keeping the 64-year-old J.H. Campbell Generating Plant operating. Writing for the court, Appeals Court Judge Cornelia Pillard stated that the emergency provision of the Federal Power Act invoked by the government is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright had previously argued that the facility was necessary to ensure regional electricity reliability, citing power demands from data centers and artificial intelligence. However, the court sided with environmental groups and three states—Michigan, Illinois, and Minnesota—that challenged the directive.
Wider Legal Disputes Over Emergency Fossil Fuel Orders
The Michigan decision marks one of the first successful legal challenges against the administration’s use of emergency powers to keep fossil fuel plants online. President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency in a January 2025 executive order, instructing federal agencies to increase fossil fuel production.
Similar federal orders have forced a half-dozen aging coal-fired plants to remain open across Indiana, Colorado, Florida, and Washington state, alongside an oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania. Critics and state officials have argued that the directives bypass the rule of law while driving up utility bills and generating avoidable pollution.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel criticized the federal directives, describing them as an unlawful political stunt
with zero basis in reality.
Nessel’s office noted that keeping the facility running past its originally scheduled May 2025 retirement has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in expenses that utilities are seeking to recover from customers.
Financial Impact and Continued Operation
Financial filings show that keeping the Michigan plant operating has cost approximately $259 million to $295 million, expenses that utility operator Consumers Energy is seeking to recover from electric customers in Michigan and other states. Opponents warn that families and businesses across the Midwest will ultimately shoulder those losses.
Despite the court ruling, the J.H. Campbell plant does not have to shut down immediately. Consumers Energy spokesperson Brian Wheeler stated that the utility is reviewing the court’s decision and will continue to operate the facility under the terms of a Department of Energy order that extends its directive through mid-November.
Environmental advocates involved in the litigation emphasized that the precedent set by the D.C. Circuit Court establishes clear legal boundaries for executive authority. Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for U.S. Clean Energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, noted that the ruling demonstrates that presidential declarations alone cannot override factual conditions and statutory limits.
