Federal Orders Force Michigan’s Deadly Coal Plants To Keep Polluting

When federal bureaucrats in Washington decided they knew better than Michigan about its own power plants, they pulled out a dusty law from 1935 and ordered a coal plant to keep belching smoke through the summer.

The Department of Energy issued emergency orders on May 23 and May 30, 2025, forcing the J.H. Campbell Power Plant to stay open. The 1,560-megawatt coal burner sits in West Olive, right on Lake Michigan. It was supposed to shut down May 31. Everyone had agreed — Consumers Energy, the Michigan Attorney General, environmental groups. Done deal. Except Washington had other ideas.

Using Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act, DOE claimed projected electricity shortages justified keeping the plant running until August 21. They cited NERC’s summer reliability assessment and MISO capacity auction results. Translation: they got scared about hot weather and decided Ottawa County residents could keep breathing coal fumes.

Michigan fought back. Hard. The state AG and environmental groups filed a 54-page petition in June 2025, arguing no real emergency existed. They called it federal overreach. They weren’t wrong.

MISO, which manages the grid across 15 states and Manitoba, even admitted they had sufficient electricity for summer. Sure, they mentioned “elevated risk” during extreme weather. But elevated risk apparently means forcing communities to inhale pollution from aging, unreliable plants.

The Campbell plant was part of Michigan’s shift to cleaner, cheaper energy. That shift just got derailed by DOE Order No. 202-25-3. The same story played out in Pennsylvania with the Eddystone Generation Station.

Washington crushed Michigan’s clean energy transition with emergency orders nobody wanted or needed.

Here’s what kills: renewable energy costs less and doesn’t poison people. Michigan had a plan. Local stakeholders agreed. The market was ready. But Washington bureaucrats decided their spreadsheets mattered more than actual human lungs. DOE issued the order without any application from utilities or grid operators, shocking even Michigan’s Public Service Commission chair.

The orders could get extended past August. Because apparently, when the federal government decides to override state decisions, damage local economies, and keep communities breathing toxic air, they really commit to it. Consumers Energy is now seeking to spread the operational costs across a 14-state tariff that would hit electric customers throughout the regional grid.

Coal plants emit pollutants that harm human health. Everyone knows this. Except, apparently, the people writing emergency orders in D.C. Michigan is trying to avoid becoming another statistic in the economic damage caused by climate change, which has already resulted in $1.5 trillion in losses from extreme weather events over a single decade.