Overview:
-After Trump administration orders a Consumers Energy coal power plant in West Michigan to stay online, a Republican lawmaker comes out in opposition to closure of DTE Energy's Monroe coal power plant.
-Keeping the 63-year-old Campbell power plant open could prove expensive, with the cost potentially falling on Consumers ratepayers.
-"A lot of this is just an ideological agenda to prop up coal and is disconnected from any actual reliability and resource adequacy issues," says Earthjustice's Shannon Fisk.
The Trump administration’s order on May 23 to keep Consumers Energy’s Campbell coal-fired power plant online coincides with similar calls to prolong the lifespan of DTE Energy’s Monroe plant southwest of Detroit.
“Monroe is twice the size of Campbell,” State Rep. Dave Prestin (R-Cedar River) told Politico’s E&E News, saying he would be “very, very upset” if the facility, slated to fully close in 2032, were torn down.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited an energy “emergency” in his order to keep the Campbell plant in West Olive, Michigan which was set to retire May 31, open for 90 days.
Michigan regulators and environmental advocates say the move is unnecessary and that keeping an old plant operating will mean steep costs for ratepayers while generating harmful air pollution and planet-warming emissions.
A Department of Energy memorandum from May 23, the same day the Campbell order was issued, highlights the challenges of keeping the plant open.
“Past the planned retirement date of May 31, Consumers has ended its contracts for coal procurement, coal delivery, and power plant staffing and may face challenges with addressing these issues on short notice,” the memo says.
“The order provides reasonable last-minute contract extensions for fuel and operations, if feasible.”
The memo, which is labeled as privileged and controlled unclassified information, was briefly posted publicly on the DOE website and then taken down, according to the Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group that advocates for clean energy and that posted the memo on its site.
Trump’s coal order creates precedent: Sierra Club organizer
Pollution from the Campbell plant causes an estimated 44 deaths per year and the facility produces over 9 million tons of carbon emissions annually, according to the nonprofit Clean Air Task Force. This represents roughly 16% of the Michigan energy sector’s total emissions.
The group found that DTE’s Monroe plant is responsible for an estimated 38 deaths annually as well as more than 16 million tons of carbon emissions, or 29% of Michigan’s energy sector emissions.
The group uses the EPA’s CO-Benefits Risk Assessment screening model to calculate its mortality estimates.
Although the final units at DTE’s Monroe plant aren’t due to suspend operations until 2028 and 2032, Bryan Smigielski, Michigan campaign organizer for the Sierra Club, said the Campbell plant order creates a precedent for similar actions with other facilities. He noted President Donald Trump has expressed a general desire to keep coal plants online.
For example, the Trump administration issued executive orders in April to stop the enforcement of state climate laws, repeal regulations that “discriminate” against coal production, waive pollution restrictions for coal plants, and develop a process for using emergency powers to prevent coal plant retirements.
DTE spokesperson Cynthia Hecht said the company still plans to retire Monroe’s remaining coal units in 2028 and 2032.
Michigan regulators are looking to reduce costs for Consumers ratepayers by having the Campbell plant’s operating expenses spread across the Midcontinent Independent System Operator’s territory. MISO is the regional grid operator covering most of Michigan, 14 other states, and part of Canada.
Environmental groups, regulators, and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel could also intervene to reverse the Campbell decision.
Trump’s order to keep the plant open is “unprecedented” and based on a “fabricated emergency,” Nessel said at the Mackinac Policy Conference last month, The Detroit News reported.
Department of Energy spokesperson Ben Dietderich said the administration is committed to “ensuring Americans have access to reliable, affordable, and secure energy that isn’t dependent on whether the sun shines or the wind blows.”
The planned retirements of both the Campbell and Monroe facilities were the result of negotiated settlements among the utilities, environmental groups, ratepayer advocates and other organizations, overseen by the Michigan Public Service Commission.
Shannon Fisk, director of state electric sector advocacy for the environmental legal group Earthjustice, said the Trump administration is trying to override this decision-making process and turn itself into a local energy planner.
“A lot of this is just an ideological agenda to prop up coal and is disconnected from any actual reliability and resource adequacy issues.”
How Nessel, others could challenge Trump’s emergency order
The attorney general could fight the order to keep the Campbell plant open either in her role as a consumer advocate or as a representative of the state, Fisk said.
If Nessel were to petition the Department of Energy for a rehearing of the Campbell decision, Fisk said the attorney general could do so on the grounds that no energy emergency exists, or that the federal agency interfered beyond its authority. He added that Nessel could make the case that, even if there is an energy emergency, it’s “clearly arbitrary” to use an old coal plant to address it.
The attorney general’s office did not respond to Planet Detroit’s request for comment.
In contrast to the administration’s stance around an energy shortfall, MISO indicated in an April press release that “adequate resources are available to maintain reliability” for the period from June 2025-May 2026.
Dietderich, with DOE, cited the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability’s 2025 Summer Reliability Assessment as proof that more baseload power is needed. The assessment finds MISO is at “elevated risk of operating reserve shortfalls during periods of high demand.”
Fisk said other parties to the Campbell settlement could also petition the Department of Energy, including environmental organizations and the MPSC.
When asked whether the MPSC would petition the DOE, commission spokesperson Matt Helms said: “we are still reviewing options.”
MPSC Chair Dan Scripps previously told Politico’s E&E News he would work with MISO and Consumers to comply with the DOE order. He criticized the order as unnecessary and expensive.
“I think it’s a difficult case to make that there is, in fact, this local energy need that can only be met through the extension of that plant,” he told the publication.
Who will pay to keep Campbell online?
Keeping the 63-year-old Campbell power plant open could prove expensive, with the cost potentially falling on Consumers ratepayers.
Closing the plant was projected to save these customers $600 million by 2040, according to the company. Its rushed reopening means the company will now pay market prices for coal rather than securing lower prices through contracts, according to Sierra Club’s Smigielski.
Nationally, coal has declined steeply as a power generation source over the last several decades as aging coal plants have struggled to compete with cheaper natural gas and renewable energy generation.
It’s unclear whether the cost of keeping the West Michigan coal plant alive will ultimately be spread across the region.
Helms, with the MPSC, said the commission would “pursue having costs spread across MISO.”
Consumers spokesperson Brian Wheeler told Planet Detroit: “The company is actively working to determine appropriate cost recovery consistent with applicable law and the federal order.”
To capture the expense of operating the Campbell plant this summer as well as health and environmental costs, the Sierra Club’s Smigielski said the MPSC should order a cost assessment for the facility.
“What that’s going to do is show … people spent a lot of money, a lot of extra pollution was poured into the air in the water, and there was no material gain from this,” he said, arguing this information could be used to make the case against coal.
Efforts to keep coal plants open could become even more harmful if the Environmental Protection Agency is able to successfully roll back standards for power plant emissions, which EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin pitched in March, Smigielski said.
This would mean subjecting people to “the kind of horrifically bad coal from 10 (or) 15 years ago that puts us all in even worse danger.”
The order keeping the Campbell plant open is limited to 90 days. But Fisk, with Earthjustice, said the administration could renew the order when it ends or issue a different order.
“It’s a real concern that this would become a perpetual thing.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Bryan Smigielski’s name. Smigielski is the Michigan campaign organizer for the Sierra Club.