Climate defenders celebrated on Friday after a federal appellate court rejected the US Department of Energy’s abuse of emergency powers to keep a Michigan coal plant open, part of President Donald Trump’s broader push to boost the climate-wrecking industry.
“The court rejected the Trump administration’s nationwide push forcing unreliable, aging coal plants that are bleeding money and polluting communities to stay online,” said Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel for US clean energy at the Environmental Defense Fund—which was among the advocacy groups that joined Michigan, Minnesota, and Illinois in challenging the DOE’s abuse of Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act to keep the JH Campbell Generating Plant running.
“The Department of Energy’s unlawful actions attempted 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,” said Kelly. “That’s why these aging coal plants are scheduled to retire in the first place—they are incredibly expensive, dangerous to our health, and break down frequently.”
The Campbell plant was scheduled to retire on May 31, 2025, after over six decades of operation. As the opinion from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia notes, Consumers Energy “worked for several years to develop plans and secure regulatory approval to retire the old Campbell plant and replace it with a mix of expanded and new electricity-generation sources.”
While Michigan officials approved the company’s retirement plan for the facility, Trump’s DOE intervened, forcing not only that plant but six others across the country to remain open—collectively costing Americans over $547 million, according to a live tracker from the Sierra Club, which has challenged all of the department’s coal plant orders.
The three-judge appellate panel unanimously vacated the department’s order on Friday, writing that “our reading of the text, structure, and history leaves us unpersuaded by DOE’s sweeping conception of its ‘emergency’ authority under Section 202(c).”
The Associated Press reported that while the DOE didn’t respond to a request for comment, Consumers Energy spokesperson Brian Wheeler said the plant operator was reviewing the court ruling and, in the meantime, will keep the facility operating through mid-November.
In a statement to Bridge Michigan, DOE spokesperson Emily Mathews claimed the emergency orders prevented blackouts and “likely saved hundreds of lives,” without offering evidence. She did not confirm plans for an appeal but did say that the department “will continue to protect and defend energy security for all Americans.”
Consumers Energy spokesperson Katie Carey told the outlet that the company “is reviewing today’s court ruling,” and “while that happens, we are continuing to comply with the current 90-day Department of Energy order.” Still, those who fought against the administration’s policy welcomed their legal victory.
“By forcing its continued operation, DOE tried a never-before-used tactic to illegally prop up the aging JH Campbell coal plant that nobody asked to keep, sticking ratepayers with a bill for a facility that should have been retired more than a year ago,” said Democratic Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in a statement.
“I am relieved that the court saw through this facade and threw out DOE’s order that had zero basis in reality,” she continued. “My office 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. We remain committed to fighting these nonsensical orders and protecting our ratepayers.”
Derrell Slaughter, the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Michigan policy director for climate and energy, declared that “Michiganders shouldn’t have been saddled with artificially high energy bills or forced to deal with toxic air pollution over a fabricated ‘emergency.’ The Campbell coal plant is out of date, costs more to operate than other electricity generation options, and is one of the worst polluters in the state.”
While applauding the decision as “a victory for families across the Midwest who are tired of paying to keep this old, expensive, and dirty power plant online,” Sierra Club chief appellate counsel Sanjay Narayan stressed that “instead of working to lower costs and clean up our air and water, the Trump administration has been pulling out all the stops to try to bolster dirty and expensive fossil fuels—at public expense.”
“This reckless agenda will not succeed,” the attorney pledged. “We will continue to hold the Department of Energy accountable to the law, and ensure that the JH Campbell plant finally retires as it was scheduled to, and we will continue to fight back against the other illegal extensions across the country.”
Earthjustice attorney Michael Lenoff also cheered the court’s rebuke of the “Trump administration’s abuse of emergency powers” and vowed to “continue to challenge unlawful orders if DOE persists in issuing them.”
“The DOE needs to stay in its lane and use its emergency powers only in actual emergencies,” he said. “Preventing the market-driven retirements of coal plants to advance a coal-friendly agenda is not a proper use of emergency powers.”
Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, noted that two years ago, his consumer advocacy organization “predicted Trump would try to force household consumers to pay higher utility bills to prop up uneconomic coal power plants, and we proudly joined with other public interest groups in June 2025 to challenge his bogus emergency declaration for the Campbell coal power plant.”
“But Americans have already been forced to shell out half a billion dollars for Trump’s obscene coal bailout vanity project,” he emphasized, pledging to “explore all options to force” the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “to refund consumers for this Trump boondoggle.”
The appellate court’s ruling came on the heels of data released this week showing that 2026 had the warmest August and meteorological summer on record in the contiguous United States, and globally, last month was the hottest ever recorded, tied with July 2023.
Despite such records, and scientists’ persistent warnings, Trump has repeatedly delivered on his campaign promises to serve the fossil fuel industry, from declaring a national energy emergency and waging a war on renewable power projects to ditching the Paris Agreement, again, and signing executive orders on coal denounced as “reckless” and “breathlessly stupid.”
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