A Unanimous D.C. Circuit Threw Out the Energy Department's Order Keeping a 64-Year-Old Michigan Coal Plant Running. Judge Pillard Called the Emergency Power a 'Narrow, Last-Resort Backstop.'

A federal appeals court on Friday vacated the Energy Department's order forcing a 64-year-old Michigan coal plant to keep operating past its scheduled retirement, ruling that the Trump administration stretched a narrow emergency power in the Federal Power Act far beyond what Congress wrote. The unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found there was no emergency under federal law that justified keeping Consumers Energy's J.H. Campbell Generating Station in West Olive, Michigan, online.

Writing for the panel, Judge Cornelia Pillard said Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act "is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop" that "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." The provision was written for wartime shortages and sudden grid failures. Energy Secretary Chris Wright invoked it in May 2025, days before Campbell was to shut down, arguing that the Midwest grid needed the plant's more than 650 megawatts to avoid blackouts. He has renewed the 90-day order repeatedly since.

The cost of that decision has landed on customers. Keeping Campbell running beyond its retirement date has cost approximately $259 million, according to Consumers Energy's financial filings, and the Michigan attorney general's office puts the figure at $295 million from May 2025 through June 2026. Because the order was issued under federal authority, those costs are spread across ratepayers throughout the Midcontinent Independent System Operator's territory, not just in Michigan. Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat who led the challenge alongside Illinois, Minnesota and a coalition of environmental groups, called the order an "unlawful political stunt."

The Energy Department defended the order and said the plant had earned its keep. Spokesperson Emily Matthews said the emergency orders "prevented blackouts and likely saved hundreds of lives during peak capacity events," and pointed to the stretch from January 21 through February 1 of this year, when Campbell generated power every day during severe winter storms. The department did not immediately say whether it would seek rehearing or take the case to the Supreme Court, and the ruling addresses only the first of the successive 90-day orders, which means the plant's immediate status depends on how the government responds.

The decision matters well beyond western Michigan. Since last spring the administration has used the same Section 202(c) authority to keep aging fossil plants running in Indiana, Colorado, Florida and Washington state, along with an oil-and-gas facility in Pennsylvania, as part of a broader push to prop up coal and delay retirements that utilities themselves had planned. Each of those orders rests on the same legal theory the D.C. Circuit has now rejected, and several are already under challenge.

The ruling landed the same week the administration moved in the opposite direction on climate policy, with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin formally repealing the Biden-era carbon standards for power plants at a G20 energy ministers' meeting in Houston. Consumers Energy has said it would prefer to close Campbell and had already replaced its capacity with gas, wind and solar purchases. For now the plant is still burning coal on the shore of Lake Michigan, waiting to learn whether the government will try again.