The fight over the U.S. Department of Energy’s order requiring Consumer Energy’s J.H. Campbell power plant to keep running past its planned retirement in May is in the courts now that opponents have filed lawsuits.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and nine organizations, including Earthjustice and Sierra Club, filed separate lawsuits July 24 at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals after DOE failed to respond to rehearing requests filed at the agency. (See Order to Keep Campbell Plant Running Challenged at DOE and FERC.)
“This unprecedented order by the Department of Energy declares an emergency without evidence, completely ignores state and federal regulators that approved the plant’s retirement, and will potentially put enormous costs onto utility customers who receive no real benefit,” Nessel said in a statement. “I will continue to fight to protect Michigan customers from unreasonable costs imposed by the federal government.”
The retirement of the plant has been planned for years, first proposed by Consumers in 2021 and approved by the Michigan Public Service Commission in 2022. The utility had procured replacement capacity and expected its closure would save consumers nearly $600 million, the attorney general said.
“The Trump administration’s extension of the J.H. Campbell plant has already harmed local Michigan communities and now could raise energy costs for millions of Americans across the Midwest,” Sierra Club Senior Attorney Greg Wannier said in a statement. “We are more than halfway through the so-called ‘energy emergency’ the administration invented to justify its unlawful order, and as expected, the grid has not needed Campbell around to provide reliable power, even during last month’s extreme heat.”
The filings are preliminary and ask the court to open a case on the issue, with more substantive briefs coming after that happens.
The petition from Nessel argues that the case is another example of the Trump administration declaring a false emergency as a pretext for advancing its policy agenda outside the means of its normal authority. DOE’s initial order will continue to run through August, but Nessel said it could be extended.
In the past, DOE has used its authority to keep plants running under the Federal Power Act’s Section 202(c) only when it received a request from the utility running the plant or a local governmental body. Those past orders also were in response to concrete emergencies and subject to limits, so they kept the plants running no longer than needed to address the situation, Nessel’s petition argued.
“It was the reasoned judgment of the utility, state regulators, the Michigan AG and a wide array of ratepayer and environmental interests in Michigan that this old jalopy of a power plant should be retired,” Earthjustice attorney Shannon Fisk said in a statement. “While the administration might not like that fact, a fabricated energy emergency does not give them the authority to saddle Michiganders with the costs and pollution of a coal plant that the utility has already replaced with other resources. The only energy emergency is the one being created by this unprecedented power grab by federal authorities.”
