“What the court said is that DOE grossly overstepped its authority,” said Michael Lenoff, a senior attorney at nonprofit law firm Earthjustice, one of several environmental groups challenging the must-run order. “Next, DOE should follow the law and rescind its current Campbell order and allow the plant to retire — and it should follow the law in all its usages of emergency authority.”
Friday’s court decision addresses only the May 2025 DOE order issued to keep the J.H. Campbell plant running, not the subsequent orders. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said the order had cost customers of the plant’s owner, the utility Consumers Energy, $180 million through March of this year.
The DOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The agency could ask the full D.C. Circuit Court to rehear the case or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, said Sanjay Narayan, the Sierra Club’s chief appellate counsel.
Legal challenges have been brought against the DOE for each of the other power plants it has forced to stay running past retirement, Narayan said. Friday’s decision lends weight to these other efforts, he said.
“All of these plants are different,” he said. But in each case, “there is no shortage that the states aren’t prepared to address.”
“That’s why these coal plants were being shut down — it saves money, and saves kids trips to the emergency room for asthma,” he said. The DOE’s must-run orders “represent an effort to force particular sources of high-polluting, expensive energy down the public’s collective throat.”
