Today, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Trump Administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) exceeded its statutory authority in ordering the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan to keep operating past its retirement date last May (2025). The Court vacated the order, and left little room for DOE to appeal.
It's a slam dunk ruling that leaves few options for the DOE if they want to challenge it. In fact, the court said:
"The Order’s deficiency cannot be redressed on remand because it depends on DOE’s misconception of the nature and scope of its emergency authority under section 202(c). Because the circumstances identified by DOE do not amount to a section 202(c) emergency, the agency cannot claim any serious possibility that it will be able to ‘substantiate its decision on remand.’”
what does A coal mine in Michigan have to do with Colorado?
Section 202c orders were established by Congress to be used as emergency directives issued by the DOE under the Federal Power Act to maintain electric grid reliability during acute energy shortages or emergency circumstances such as wartime. Under President Trump, however, the DOE has issued a number of 202c orders, including one directing Westminster-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission to keep Unit 1 at their Craig coal plant in Northwest Colorado open. The plant was scheduled to close on Dec. 31, 2025.
Like the owners of Michigan’s Campbell coal plant, Tri-State and one of its co-owners, Platte River Power Authority (PRPA), sued to overturn the 202c for Craig1. In fact, numerous coal plant owners have sued to overturn 202c orders, see more here.
Circumstances around the Craig plant are nearly identical to Campbell's, and the suit was filed in the same court, so the ruling today should establish a precedent that quickly overturns the Craig order.
If you remember the headlines from earlier this year, all of the owners and operators of Craig Unit 1, want to close it. Tri-State and PRPA filed a formal objection to the Trump Administration’s 202c orders that are forcing the coal plant to stay open. As Michael Booth for The Colorado Sun reported in January:
”They don’t need it, they don’t want it, and their inflation-strapped consumers can’t afford the higher bills. Plus, the federal order is unconstitutional.
Tri-State, which delivers power to 42 member co-ops and utilities serving more than 1 million people in four Western states, and Platte River Power, which serves Fort Collins, Loveland and northern Colorado, detailed their objections to keeping Craig open in a 38-page petition Thursday to the U.S. Department of Energy. They joined the Colorado attorney general and a coalition of environmental groups opposing the order at a deadline for the government to consider extending the emergency past March 30.
‘We do not take this request for a rehearing lightly, but as not-for-profit entities, we face issues that other utilities do not, because it is our members that ultimately are going to pay for the cost of this order,’ Tri-State CEO Duane Highley said.”
DOE dismissed the administrative appeal without any justification, instead simply letting the clock run out, which led to Tri-State and PRPA’s litigation in the Court of Appeals. Just yesterday, Ishan Thakore at Colorado Public Radio reported:
“Xcel Energy has spent more than $4 million to keep the Craig Unit 1 coal plant open, even though the plant produced little electricity between January to June 2026….
Xcel owns only around 10% of Craig 1, so its costs are only a small fraction of what’s required to keep the plant open.
In theory, and assuming all the co-owners spend the same amount proportionally, keeping the unit open could have cost more than $40 million in around eight months, according to Eric Frankowski, director of the Western Clean Energy Campaign.
‘It’s pretty outrageous,’ Frankowski said of the high costs to generate electricity from the plant. ‘Solar and wind and battery storage are literally exponentially lower than that.’
Xcel’s cost disclosure came in a July legal filing, in an appeals court case challenging the DOE’s order….
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has been bullish about coal, and has issued more than 20 emergency orders around the country to keep aging plants open.
But the Trump administration is not picking up the tab to keep them open. Overall, the agency’s emergency orders cost ratepayers more than $300 million in extra costs through mid-May, according to an analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a clean-energy research group…
Xcel said it was unlikely it would weigh in on whether the DOE’s orders were legal. But in a statement, the company said its costs would likely be paid for by its Colorado customers, through an adjustment that’s collected through customer bills.”
If you want a deep dive into the dynamics around the Craig coal plant, the Colorado Sun and the Colorado Public Radio articles linked above are a good place to start.
Want more information about the Court’s specific ruling today? Check out this press release we spotted from Sierra Club and Earthjustice:
VICTORY: Court Rules Against Trump’s Michigan Coal Bailout
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the U.S. District Circuit Court for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the Sierra Club, overturning the Department of Energy’s“emergency” order overriding the state’s and utility’s decision to close the J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant.
In May 2025, Trump’s Department of Energy issued a last-minute “emergency order” days before the J.H. Campbell power plant was scheduled to retire. Sierra Club and Earthjustice, along with the State of Michigan, successfully argued that there was no “energy emergency” at the time of the extension order, and the order was an unlawful use of Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act.
Since the illegal order was issued, the J.H. Campbell power plant has been costing families in the Midwest region $600,000 a day to remain online. The administration has also issued similar unlawful orders across the country. According to Sierra Club’s “Burning Money” tracker, these orders have cost Americans over $546 million dollars to date. The Sierra Club has filed challenges against every unlawful extension order issued by the DOE.
By delaying the plant’s retirement and occupying the site of the power plant, the administration is also keeping new, cost-saving, clean energy projects from coming online. According to Sierra Club’s Out of Control dashboard, the J.H. Campbell plant kills an estimated 66 people each year from soot and smog pollution.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for families across the Midwest who are tired of paying to keep this old, expensive, and dirty power plant online,” said Sierra Club Chief Appellate Counsel Sanjay Narayan. “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. We will continue to hold the Department of Energy accountable to the law, and ensure that the J.H. Campbell plant finally retires as it was scheduled to, and we will continue to fight back against the other illegal extensions across the country.”
“The court issued a rebuke of the Trump Administration’s abuse of emergency powers,” said Earthjustice Attorney Michael Lenoff. “The DOE needs to stay in its lane and use its emergency powers only in actual emergencies. Preventing the market-driven retirements of coal plants to advance a coal-friendly agenda is not a proper use of emergency powers. We will continue to challenge unlawful orders if DOE persists in issuing them.”
