DOE Coal PlantMandates

On his first day in office in 2025, President Trump declared a so-called “national energy emergency,” and the Department of Energy has repeatedly issued 202(c) orders – “grid emergency” orders – to keep aging, dirty power plants online. The Trump administration is unlawfully using emergency orders to force power plants to run, even if they were otherwise shut down or scheduled to retire.

Many of the coal plants targeted by these mandates have broken down when they were supposedly most needed for a "grid emergency." One of the Indiana coal units, which the administration ordered to keep operating last December, has been broken down since July of last year. The Craig coal plant in Colorado suffered a costly mechanical failure that kept it offline until late January 2026. The J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan, which has been operating under such emergency orders since May 2025, was partially shut down last summer.

However, the Trump administration has re-extended the orders for all of these coal plants anyway, despite the high costs of keeping these old, unreliable plants operational – costs which ultimately fall on ratepayers.