Federal Judges Defy Trump, Clear Way for Power Plant Shutdown

A federal appeals court has rejected the Trump administration’s use of emergency authority to keep Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal-fired power plant operating beyond its planned retirement.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the Department of Energy exceeded its authority under the Federal Power Act. The ruling vacated the federal order that had required the plant to remain available.

The distinction matters: the judges did not issue an operational command ordering the plant to shut down on a particular date. They struck down the federal action that was preventing its planned retirement, clearing the way for the owner and regulators to proceed without that emergency mandate.

The administration has argued that retiring dispatchable coal generation too quickly can threaten electric-grid reliability as U.S. power demand rises. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has used emergency authority in several cases to keep generating capacity available, arguing that reliable power is a national-security and public-safety issue. Opponents argued that the Michigan order did not meet the legal threshold for a genuine emergency; the Associated Press reported continued operation under the order had cost roughly $259 million.

The larger fight is not really over one Michigan facility. It is over who gets to decide when a power plant is essential to reliability and how far presidential emergency authority can reach. The court rejected the administration’s legal mechanism here; the underlying argument over grid reliability is far from settled.