A Federal Court Says There Was No Emergency at Michigan's Campbell Coal Plant. Keeping It Open Has Cost $259 Million So Far.

A federal appeals court on Friday threw out the Trump administration's order forcing a Michigan coal-fired power plant to keep running past its scheduled retirement, ruling that the Energy Department had invented an emergency that did not exist under the law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with three states, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, and a coalition of environmental groups that had challenged the order keeping the 64-year-old J.H. Campbell Generating Plant in West Olive, Michigan, online after its planned shutdown in May 2025.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright had invoked section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, a rarely used short-term emergency power, arguing the plant was needed to keep the lights on in the Midwest. The court disagreed. The provision "is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop," Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel that also included Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan and Judge Robert Wilkins. Emergency authority, she wrote, "is triggered only when there is a need for immediate, essentially last-resort action and the circumstances require action by DOE in particular, as opposed to action by the state or states responsible for resource adequacy." Reversing the plant's "long and carefully planned retirement," she added, is "disruptive."

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said she was relieved the court "threw out DOE's order that had zero basis in reality." Her office, she said, "has been fighting this unlawful political stunt at every turn, and this ruling proves what we have been saying all along: this administration does not get to invent fake emergencies to bypass the rule of law against the best interests of Michigan residents." The financial stakes are concrete. Keeping Campbell running beyond its retirement date has cost about $259 million so far, according to new financial filings, and the plant's owner, Consumers Energy, is seeking to recover that money from customers in Michigan and 10 other states served by the regional grid.

The Energy Department defended the order and gave no indication it would abandon the strategy. Spokeswoman Emily Matthews said the emergency orders, including Campbell's, "prevented blackouts and likely saved hundreds of lives during peak capacity events this past year," particularly during severe winter storms in late January and early February. Coal generation in the affected regions rose 25% over the prior year at the peak of those storms, she said, and Campbell alone supplied more than 650 megawatts every day from Jan. 21 to Feb. 1. The department "will continue to protect and defend energy security for all Americans," she said. Consumers Energy spokesman Brian Wheeler said the utility was reviewing the ruling and would keep the plant operating in the meantime under the terms of a recent DOE order that extends the directive through mid-November.

The Campbell case is the first to reach a decision among several challenges to the administration's use of emergency powers to keep roughly a half-dozen coal plants open, with similar orders covering plants in Indiana, Colorado, Florida and Washington state, plus an oil-and-gas plant in Pennsylvania ordered to keep its turbines running as a hedge against shortages on the mid-Atlantic grid. President Trump declared a national energy emergency in a January 2025 executive order, citing surging demand from artificial intelligence and data centers. Critics say the orders raise ratepayer bills and add pollution that could have been avoided; Grist reported that since May 2025 the Campbell plant has emitted roughly 1,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and 140 tons of particulate matter.

Environmental groups treated the decision as a template for the other cases. 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," and that the department had tried "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." Sanjay Narayan, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, called it a victory for families across the Midwest "paying to keep this old, expensive and dirty power plant online." "This reckless agenda will not succeed," he said. "We will continue to fight back against the other illegal extensions across the country." The administration can seek rehearing by the full D.C. Circuit or ask the Supreme Court to intervene, which could keep the plant running while the fight continues.