The Trump administration on Friday defended its legal authority to order coal plants to stay open, arguing before a panel of federal judges that it alone has the power to decide whether an energy emergency exists.
The case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is focused on the J.H. Campbell power plant on the banks of Lake Michigan, the first of six aging coal and oil plants that Energy Secretary Chris Wright has blocked from planned retirement. The precedent the case sets could be far-reaching.
The state of Michigan and environmentalists argue that, under President Donald Trump, the Department of Energy has swept aside the procedures and safeguards of the 91-year-old Federal Power Act. That’s the law spelling out that utilities, states, and regional planning authorities decide whether electricity resources are adequate, with input from the public.
“The department’s claim of authority here is unprecedented,” said Lucas Wollenzien, assistant attorney general for Michigan. “If unchecked, it would transform the structure of power for regulating resource planning as it has been commonly understood for decades.”
But the Trump administration’s lawyer maintained that the emergency authority that Congress included in the law gives the energy secretary broad power to decide if immediate action is needed.
