Trump Ordered Coal Plants to Keep Running Despite Climate Emergency
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has issued at least six emergency orders forcing coal plants to keep running past their scheduled retirements. Some of these plants are broken. All of them are expensive. None of them are needed.
And you’re paying for it.
One day before Colorado’s Craig Generating Station Unit 1 was set to close on December 31, 2025, Wright ordered it to stay open until March 2026. There’s one problem: the plant has been broken since December 19. A valve failed. It’s been offline for nearly two weeks.
Repairing it will cost millions of dollars. Those costs get passed to you—the ratepayer. Colorado Governor Jared Polis said the order will cost “tens of millions” that Colorado customers will bear “to keep a coal plant open that is broken and not needed.”
The plant operator, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, confirmed the unit isn’t operational and warned that compliance will require “additional investments in operations, repairs, maintenance and, potentially, fuel supply.” As a nonprofit cooperative, their members—rural electric customers across Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and New Mexico—will pay those costs.
This isn’t an isolated incident. Wright forced two Indiana coal plants to stay open on the same day. The Schahfer Generating Station has a unit that’s been broken since July. It needs repairs costing tens of millions just to restart before it can generate any power.
In Michigan, Wright ordered the J.H. Campbell coal plant to stay open in May 2025. That cost ratepayers $80 million from late May through late September—mostly for purchasing additional coal. Those costs raised electricity bills in Michigan and ten other states the plant serves.
An independent analysis by Grid Strategies estimates forcing coal plants scheduled to retire through 2028 to keep running could cost ratepayers $3.1 billion per year. If Wright extends this to additional plants, the cost could reach $6 billion annually.
Why is he doing this? Wright claims it’s necessary to prevent blackouts. He invokes Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, which allows emergency orders during electricity shortages.
Except there’s no emergency. The utilities themselves say these plants aren’t needed. State regulators confirmed closure wouldn’t impair reliability. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation—the agency responsible for grid reliability—found adequate generating capacity for 2026.
Colorado’s Energy Office executive director Will Toor told CNN that Craig Unit 1 is “simply not needed to bolster the state’s grid.” Tri-State already built gas and renewable projects to replace the power that unit produced.
Wright’s order, Toor said, is “purely for the purpose of trying to keep coal in the system for ideological reasons, while driving up cost to customers.”
That’s the truth. Trump calls coal “beautiful clean coal” despite it being the dirtiest fossil fuel. His administration is weaponizing emergency powers not to prevent blackouts but to prop up the dying coal industry.
Meanwhile, his administration blocks wind, solar, and battery projects that would add clean, cheap power to the grid quickly. Projects that wouldn’t require keeping broken plants on life support at ratepayer expense.
Environmental groups are suing over these orders. Earthjustice attorney Michael Lenoff said Wright’s “unlawful orders impose real costs on real families. The agency obligates Americans to take money out of their pockets to pay unneeded coal plants to pollute their air.”
Think about the absurdity. Utilities spent years planning these retirements. They ended coal delivery contracts. They approved replacement power sources. They developed transition plans for workers. Then Wright swoops in at the last minute and orders broken plants to keep running.
It disrupts years of planning. It raises costs for businesses and households already struggling with inflation. It forces repairs on plants that were being retired specifically because they’re uneconomic and polluting.
This is Trump’s climate policy: ignore the climate emergency while declaring fake electricity emergencies to justify keeping coal alive. Force ratepayers to subsidize a dying industry. Block clean energy while propping up the dirtiest fuel.
2025 tied for the second-warmest year on record. Climate disasters cost Americans nearly $115 billion and 300 lives. The solution? Keep burning coal. Keep the pollution flowing. Keep charging you for it.
Still think he cares about your electricity bills?
Sources:
Canary Media: “Trump admin’s must-run orders put broken-down coal plants in a bind”
Indiana Capital Chronicle: “Trump administration orders 2 Indiana power plants to keep burning coal”