Federal court rejects Trump administration order keeping Michigan coal plant open

A federal court has ruled that the US Energy Department exceeded its authority when it ordered a Michigan coal-fired power plant to stay open past its scheduled retirement date. The J.H Campbell plant, which is 64 years old, was one of seven fossil-fueled plants around the country that the Trump administration forced to stay in operation.

The Energy Department invoked short-term emergency powers under the Federal Power Act to keep the plant running, citing the threat of outages and the need for more energy to power data centers as an "emergency". However, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected this argument, with Judge Cornelia Pillard stating that the emergency statute is a "narrow, last-resort backstop".

This ruling represents one of the first successful legal challenges to how the administration has used its "energy emergency" powers, according to Grist. The court's decision was a defeat for the Trump administration.

Brief written by urgent.news from PBS NewsHour, Global News, Grist — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.