Environmental, Consumer Groups Challenge Trump’s Unlawful Coal Plant Extensions

Environmental, Consumer Groups Challenge Trump's Unlawful Coal Plant Extensions

Extending the lives of unreliable, dirty, and expensive coal plants hurts consumers

Contacts

Alexandria Trimble, [email protected]

Today, seven environmental and consumer advocacy groups filed rehearing requestsafter Donald Trump's Department of Energy unlawfully invoked Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act and forced two coal power plants in Indiana to stay online after their planned retirements. The seven groups include Sierra Club, Environmental Law and Policy Center, and Earthjustice representing Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, Just Transition Northwest Indiana, Hoosier Environmental Council, and Public Citizen.

In December 2025, Donald Trump's Department of Energy forced the last coal units at the R.M. Schahfer power plant-operating since 1976-and one of the coal units at the F.B. Culley generating station-built in 1966-to stay online days before their planned retirements. This is part of Donald Trump's attempt to bolster the flailing coal industry at the expense of everyday customers.

The unlawful action is expected to be very expensive. For instance, operating Schahfer beyond 2025 would require more than one billion dollars in expenditures, according to a 2024 analysis from the plant owner. Culley's Unit 2's owner considers it "among the most inefficient units within the State" and among "the smallest and more expensive coal units in the MISO stack," also figuring that an additional $70 million in expenditures are needed to keep operating.

Aside from the expenditures to rehabilitate the broken and outmoded plants, both power plants are expected to lose millions of dollarsin the market, as their coal and other operating costs exceed the revenues they can earn. The plants' owners are trying to pass down these costs to customers in Indiana and ten other states, and environmental and consumer advocacy groups are pushing back. Sierra Club's 'Burning Money' tracker estimates the daily total amount that 202(c) orders are costing customers across the country. In 2025, electricity prices rose by 6.7 percent.

The Sierra Club and Earthjustice have also challenged similar orders in Washington, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Colorado's Craig power plant also receivedan unlawful extension order for which challenges are due next week.

"At a time when Americans are already struggling with skyrocketing utility bills and growing grocery costs, Donald Trump and his administration are exacerbating the affordability crisis by extending the life of old, retiring coal plants, further driving up costs for everyday Americans," said Sierra Club Senior Attorney Tony Mendoza. "We are challenging this sham 'emergency order' because we believe that hardworking families should not have to hand over their hard-earned money to coal executives at the order of Donald Trump. We will continue to push back against this illegal attempt to prop up these expensive, polluting coal plants."

"American families are struggling with record high utility bills in Trump's inflation economy, because his atrocious energy policies force working families to bail out expensive coal power plants," said Tyson Slocum, Energy Program Director for Public Citizen."Trump explicitly and repeatedly promised to cut Americans' energy bills during the campaign, even writing in a Newsweek op-ed on October 1, 2024 that as President he would 'cut energy and electricity prices in half within 12 months-not just for businesses but for all Americans and their families.' Trump's costly coal bailouts have ensured his campaign promise is a lie".

"The federal government has invented a grid reliability crisis in a transparent and illegal attempt to commandeer uneconomic, dilapidated power plants, force them to operate, and stick us with the bill." said Ben Inskeep, Program Director at Citizens Action Coalition."We are fighting back against the federal government's unprecedented overreach that will cause our utility bills to soar and choke Hoosier communities with more toxic pollution from coal."

"This is a needless, last-ditch effort to resuscitate a dying industry to power the AI boom," said Ashley Williams, Executive Director of Just Transition Northwest Indiana. "Our communities are organizing and confronting the Trump administration's shameful actions. This order will have irreversible consequences, locking in generations more of climate-devastating pollution and toxic coal ash waste contaminating the waterways of Jasper County and beyond. It exacerbates an affordability crisis where families are sacrificing their basic needs to pay escalating utility bills, a reality Hoosiers know all too well."

"Cleaner power sources are available and Schahfer and Culley were ready to stop burning coal, so the federal order for them to continue burning coal is an unwarranted extension of coal and coal ash pollution in Indiana," said Indra Frank, Coal Ash Advisor at Hoosier Environmental Council.

"Once again, President Trump's Department of Energy is attempting to force Midwest residential and business consumers to pay higher electricity bills to keep coal plants running that are no longer needed and not economically viable," said Howard Learner, Executive Director & CEO, Environmental Law & Policy Center."The utilities already made the right financial call to retire these plants. The Trump DOE is making a bad situation worse when it comes to energy affordability problems that hit peoples' wallets hard, while adding more pollution that harms public health."

"Our nation's careful balance between the States and the federal government for regulating electricity worked here. The owners of these power plants decided years ago that the plants are too old, unreliable, dirty, and expensive to continue kicking the can down the road with more upgrades to keep them going. Instead, they resolved to replace the coal plants with resources that better meet their customers' needs, and they followed through," said Sameer Doshi, Senior Attorney at Earthjustice. "State regulators and the federally-regulated transmission grid operator all looked at these plans and saw no problem. The Department of Energy hasn't remotely shown any emergency in the power system that would support upending these plans."

The so-called 'emergency order' has historically only been invoked during extreme weather conditions or wartime. As a part of the rehearing request, Sierra Club, ELPC, and Earthjustice argue that the DOE failed to provide sufficient evidence of any emergency or electricity shortage in the region warranting the order to keep Schahfer and Culley open.

Customers residing in Indiana are already slated to foot the bill for the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan, which received a similar sham 'emergency order' in May 2025 and has been receiving repeat orders since (now totaling three orders). The Campbell plant cost an extra $615,000 per day to remain online during the first four months of the DOE's emergency orders.

About Earthjustice

Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.