Trump’s Energy Department Keeps Ordering Coal Plants To Stay Open After Losing In Court
The Energy Department is still ordering aging coal plants to stay open after a federal appeals court ruled it overstepped its emergency powers.
Simon August · Sep 26, 2026 · 6 min read
The Energy Department is still ordering aging coal plants to stay open after a federal appeals court ruled it overstepped its emergency powers.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright ordered units at Indiana’s R.M. Schahfer and F.B. Culley coal plants to remain available through Dec. 18, the department announced Sept. 19. The orders came a week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated Wright’s first emergency order for Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant, which he issued in May 2025 to keep it running past its planned retirement.
“DOE [the Energy Department] disagrees with the decision and is working with DOJ [the Justice Department] to assess potential rehearing and appeal options,” Energy Department Press Secretary Ben Dietderich told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Wright said in the department’s release that forcing coal generation off the grid “would compromise energy reliability and needlessly raises energy costs for Americans.”
Judge Cornelia Pillard, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, wrote for the panel that states “bear the responsibility to plan for and avert reliability risks on an ongoing basis.”
The Campbell ruling also bears on a separate challenge to the department’s orders for Colorado’s Craig Station Unit 1, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association public relations specialist Mark Stutz told the DCNF.
Stutz said the D.C. Circuit paused Tri-State’s first appeal on June 6 until 60 days after it ruled in the Campbell case, and that Tri-State and co-owner Platte River Power Authority have since filed three petitions challenging the department’s orders, the latest on Sept. 22.
He said the department has issued three emergency orders for the unit, the latest on June 26, and that each of the owners’ requests for rehearing was denied automatically when the department did not act on it.
Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.