Trump Administration’s DOE Is Forcing Coal Plants to Stay Open. Michigan Is the First Target.

The DOE’s decision to force the Campbell coal plant to remain online will not address a real problem. Instead, it will impose real costs on customers and communities in Michigan and throughout the Midwest. 

To comply with the DOE’s order, Consumers Energy must now: 

• Pay premium prices to purchase coal on short notice.
• Perform unplanned repairs and maintenance on a plant that was preparing for closure.
• Find and pay for adequate staffing to run the plant, after many employees already moved to other facilities or retired.   

These unbudgeted costs will be passed along to Midwest electric customers. While the costs of the Campbell Section 202(c) order won’t be clear until Consumers Energy files with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates of the fixed operation and maintenance costs for the plant suggest that keeping it online just for the 90-day order could cost more than $7 million, even without accounting for the extra expenses associated with last-minute coal procurement and emergency maintenance repairs. If the plant is not dispatched economically—i.e., if it’s kept running when it is more expensive than cheaper sources on the grid—the costs could be much higher. These costs come as families and businesses are already struggling with high energy prices. 

Scripps has warned that the DOE order will increase costs and erase much of the savings that customers were expecting from Campbell’s retirement. There is no sound reason to ask Michigan or other Midwest ratepayers to subsidize an inefficient and polluting coal plant that the state has already moved beyond. 

Campbell is also one of the most polluting coal plants in the Midwest. It emits millions of tons of carbon dioxide annually, along with thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. These pollutants contribute to climate change and cause severe public health impacts, including asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses. The communities surrounding Campbell will bear the brunt of this pollution, a burden they were promised would end with the plant’s retirement. 

The notion that Michigan faces a reliability emergency this summer is simply false. The state, its utilities, and its regulators have spent years preparing for the Campbell plant’s retirement through a deliberate, transparent, and collaborative process. 

Consumers Energy’s 2021 Integrated Resource Plan resulted in a landmark 2022 settlement, which NRDC and a broad coalition of Michigan stakeholders helped negotiate. The settlement committed Consumers to retire all of its coal plants by 2025, with Campbell as the largest and last. The settlement was specifically designed to maintain grid reliability while accelerating Michigan’s shift to clean energy. 

As part of the agreement: 

• Consumers Energy purchased a 1,200 megawatt (MW) natural gas plant.
• Consumers Energy preserved its plan to add thousands of megawatts of new solar capacity through competitive solicitations.
• Consumers Energy committed to new battery storage and clean energy through an all-source solicitation.  

These combined investments ensure that Michigan has sufficient, reliable, and affordable electricity without Campbell. 

The DOE’s order requires Consumers Energy and the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) to continue operating the Campbell plant through the summer, based on assertions that the state of Michigan lacks sufficient generation and that the MISO region faces shortages of electricity during that time. Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act permits the department to order electricity generation if an emergency exists “by reason of a shortage of electric energy or of facilities for the generation or transmission of electric energy.” 

However, no credible evidence supports the claim that an energy emergency exists in Michigan or the broader MISO region. 

MISO’s latest Summer Readiness Assessment indicates that the region has nearly 2,400 MW of capacity above its required reserve margin, a cushion designed to ensure reliability even under extreme conditions. The DOE’s order takes out of context comments from MISO that encourage the development of new generating capacity to falsely suggest an imminent state of shortfall.  

Even more troubling, the order is not an isolated case. Just a week after the Campbell order, the DOE issued another Section 202(c) order at Constellation’s Eddystone power plant that burns oil and gas outside of Philadelphia. That order similarly lacked evidence of a genuine emergency. These two orders are an ominous beginning of a broader Trump administration effort to prop up fossil fuel plants under an executive order issued April 8. The DOE’s quick orders—based on flimsy evidence—portend a wave of unjustified, costly emergency orders this summer. 

Federal energy policy should not be manufacturing emergencies to prop up outdated fossil fuel infrastructure. The DOE has many better tools to support a reliable grid and an abundant energy supply, such as supporting the development of new transmission projects to improve regional power sharing and to interconnect new generators and energy storage resources faster. The federal government should also work to address supply chain issues that delay clean energy deployments, expand demand flexibility to reduce peak demand and enhance grid stability, and encourage large new loads, such as data centers, to build their own clean generation and avoid stressing local grids. 

These are the solutions that serve the public interest—not artificially prolonging the life of aging coal plants at great public cost. 

Michigan must stand firm and continue pursuing a clean, affordable, and reliable grid that protects both ratepayers and public health. Our energy future should not be dictated by political decisions from Washington, D.C., that ignore the state’s careful planning and progress. 

State officials must remain focused on achieving least-cost reliability through renewables, battery storage, and transmission upgrades. These investments not only lower costs for families and businesses, but they also reduce the pollution that disproportionately impacts low-income communities and communities of color. 

Michigan leaders must also be prepared to fight back against the DOE’s order: 

• State agencies, the attorney general’s office, and legislative leaders should continue to oppose this federal intrusion, which threatens the health of Michiganders and will raise their electricity costs.
• Michigan must make clear that decisions about its energy future belong to Michigan—not to Washington.
• The state should vigorously defend its clean energy progress and prevent Michigan ratepayers from being forced to subsidize an unnecessary and costly coal plant this summer. 

This is a pivotal moment for Michigan to stand strong. The state has demonstrated leadership in planning a clean, reliable energy future. It must not allow federal political interference to derail this progress. 

The Campbell order is a bad solution to a nonexistent problem. It imposes real financial and public health harms on Michigan residents. The order undermines state authority over electricity generation resources and sets a dangerous precedent for manufactured emergencies that disregard careful planning by states and utilities for an affordable energy transition. The DOE should reverse this misguided order and refocus its efforts on real solutions that enhance reliability and affordability for all Americans.