Energy Secretary Chris Wright testified about his department’s 2026 budget request at a House hearing where members often pressed him on other issues, including his recent use of the Federal Power Act to keep coal plants from retiring. 

“The Trump administration has been laser focused on raising energy costs for Americans, despite what the president campaigned on,” Rep Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said June 10. “And the example came in the last month when your department ordered two power plants burning coal, natural gas and fuel oil to stay online mere days before they were scheduled to shut down for good.” 

Pallone asked at the hearing of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy who had made the decision to keep open Consumer Energy’s J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan and Constellation Energy’s Eddystone natural gas-fired plant outside Philadelphia. 

Wright answered that he had; Pallone then quickly moved on to press him about how much money it will cost to keep Campbell running, quoting an estimate from the Michigan Public Service Commission of tens of millions of dollars. Consumers has filed a complaint with FERC seeking compensation from MISO’s north and central zones, saying it is tracking costs and will file a specific number at the end of the summer. (See Consumers Energy Seeking Compensation for Keeping Campbell Open.) 

PJM is taking a different path, working with stakeholders to come up with a way to pay Constellation to implement DOE’s order. (See PJM Board Initiates CIFP Process for Eddystone Compensation.) 

“Mr. Secretary, your background is in the oil and gas sector, not the electric sector,” Pallone said. “So, why do you think that you knew better than the grid operators, utilities and the state regulators to actually try to revive these even though no one seemed to care? Why are you increasing electricity prices for millions of people?” 

When it comes to the Campbell plant, Wright said MISO had a blackout just two days after DOE announced that it would keep running this summer, past its retirement initially planned for May 31. (See MISO Requires Load Shed in New Orleans to Avoid Grid Instability.) 

“MISO [has] the tightest reserve margin we have in the country,” Wright said. “You need to be able to keep the lights on. Two days later, the lights went out.” 

Pallone responded that the outage in New Orleans was a different part of the market. Entergy’s territory is in MISO South, which has limited transmission links to its central and north regions and is not subject to cost recovery for running the plant this summer under Consumers’ FERC filing. 

Rep. John James (R-Mich.) asked about the Campbell plant later in the hearing, specifically asking whether Michigan’s and other states’ net-zero energy policies had contributed to the situation in MISO. 

“Many people at DOE have been in dialogues with NERC and with MISO about these issues, but I think you hit the nail on the head,” Wright said. “What do we want? We want to reshore manufacturing to Michigan. We want to bring data centers to Michigan. We need to grow the supply of affordable, reliable electricity in Michigan.” 

Closing a coal plant 15 years before the end of its intended lifespan works against that goal, with Wright saying Michigan officials made the decision for “virtue signaling.” 

“That’s not the best interest of Michigan ratepayers and Michigan citizens,” Wright said. “But, yes, utilities get bullied and influenced by state politicians and national politicians that have political agendas around energy that are often not aligned with ratepayers and citizens.” 

James then made a pitch for Consumers’ proposed allocation for the plant, spreading it across 12 other states in MISO’s north and central regions so that the contract is not “financially punitive” to Michigan customers. 

“MISO is a large organization,” James said. “Where this power is dispatched is going to benefit a larger organization and, so, therefore, those costs should necessarily be spread out, as we all have to make sure that we are cooperating to make sure that we keep our power high and keeping our costs low.” 

Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R-N.D.) used her time for questions to note that she introduced the Baseload Reliability Protection Act with seven other Republican co-sponsors that would keep dispatchable power plants open to help the grid meet growing power demand. 

“Given that NERC’s assessment today is that two-thirds of our systems in the U.S. don’t have enough power to meet demand given certain circumstances today, and we’re looking at retiring 115 GW of baseload generation, and we’re seeing significant demand increases — all of that looks like a huge train wreck to me and to many others,” Fedorchak said. 

The bill would prohibit the retirement or conversion of dispatchable power generators in areas NERC has identified as having “elevated reliability risks,” protect those plants from any fines from noncompliance with environmental rules, and allow DOE to offer grants and loans to support needed plant upgrades and extend operational life. The bill provides exemptions when continued operation poses safety risks or is economically unviable. 

Wright said the policies in the bill align with what DOE has been working on to ensure the grid can accommodate new demand from data centers and reshored manufacturing. 

“We have a team in our Office of Electricity that’s looking at grid reserve margins across the different areas of the country,” Wright said. “And we’re looking at planned retirements, and then we’re going to try to proactively engage with all of them.” 

“This might be a five-year thing,” Fedorchak said. “This might not be forever, but right now, we’re behind, so let’s stop retiring. Let’s make sure we’re bringing new resources on as quickly as possible. I stand with my colleagues across the aisle to work on permitting reform, to bring things up as quickly as possible. But meanwhile, we need to keep what we have. That should not be a partisan statement.”