Aging Michigan Coal Plant Kept Open by Trump Order Costs Ratepayers $113M

[Thiệu Ngô]

Trump order to keep Michigan power plant open costs taxpayers $113m
Critics say JH Campbell coal-fired plant in western Michigan is expensive and emits high levels of toxic pollution.

By Tom Perkinsin Detroit, Michigan

Trump administration orders to keep an ageing, unneeded Michigan coal-fired power plant online has cost ratepayers from across the US midwest about $113m so far, according to estimates from the plant’s operator and regulators.

Still, the US energy department last week ordered the plant to remain open for another 90 days.

The Trump administration in May ordered utility giant Consumers Energy to keep the 63-year-old JH Campbell coal plant in western Michigan, about 100 miles north-east of Chicago, online just as it was being retired.

The order has drawn outrage from consumer advocates and environmental groups who say the plant is expensive and emits high levels of toxic air pollution and greenhouse gas.

The costs will be spread among households across the northern and central regional Miso grid, which stretches from eastern Montana to Michigan, and includes nine other states

“The costs of unnecessarily running this jalopy coal plant just continue to mount,” said Michael Lenoff, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is suing over the order.

Gary Rochow, Consumers Energy’s CEO, told investors in a 30 October earnings call that the Trump administration in its order stated that ratepayers should shoulder the costs, and detailed how the company should pass on the costs.

“That order from the energy department has laid out a clear path to cost recovery,” Rochow said.

The utility has said in regulatory filings that the order is costing customers about $615,000 per day. The order has been in place for around six months.

Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel filed a motion for a stay in federal court, alleging the administration’s latest order is “arbitrary and illegal”.

The coal plant is one of two in Michigan that the Trump administration has moved to keep open under the president’s controversial national energy emergency executive order, which is being challenged in court by multiple lawsuits.

The other plant is not scheduled to close for two years. The two factories emit about 45% of the state’s greenhouse gas pollution.

Trump has also used his emergency energy order to keep gas plants near Baltimore and Philadelphia online.

Consumers Energy said it did not ask for Campbell to remain open. The Trump administration did not consult local regulators, a spokesperson for the Michigan public service commission (MPSC), which regulates utilities and manages the state’s grid, told the Guardian in May.

“The unnecessary recent order … will increase the cost of power for homes and businesses in Michigan and across the midwest,” the chair of the MPSC, Dan Scripps, said in a statement at the time.

The latest figures proved Scripps correct.

In May, an energy department spokesperson insisted in a statement that retiring the coal plants “would jeopardize the reliability of our grid systems”.

But regulatory data from Miso and the MPSC over the last six months shows that statement was wrong.

The Miso grid had excess power far above what Campbell provided during peak demand this summer. And the plant often was not operating at full capacity, likely because its power was not needed, advocates say. But the plant still costs ratepayers even when not operating at capacity.

The energy department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the data showing it was not necessary to keep the plant open.

Campbell and Michigan’s other coal plant that the Trump administration is aiming to keep online release high levels of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter into the air. Meanwhile, their coal ash ponds leach arsenic, lead, lithium, radium and sulfate into local drinking water and the Great Lakes.

Consumers Energy had since 2021 been planning for the Campbell’s closure as required by the state’s energy plan. The company said the plant’s closure would save ratepayers in the state about $600m by 2040.