As Trump boosts coal, opponents warn of higher costs and more pollution

Summary

The policy shift toward keeping more coal plants online has become one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent moves in his second term, an Associated Press review of government data and interviews with experts found. Before Trump took office again, the Biden administration and many utilities were planning for a power system that would lean more heavily on renewables, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution and air pollution that health experts say contributes to premature deaths.

AP reports that, instead, the Trump administration has used emergency powers to prevent the closure of five coal plants and has directed millions of dollars of taxpayer money for repairs and life extensions for other plants. Trump administration officials argue coal-fired generation remains necessary for grid reliability and that the Biden approach made renewables over-reliant on subsidies in the name of climate change.

“It’s happening as electricity demand surges due to the colossal growth of data centers,” the AP report says, describing how new power needs are colliding with utilities’ earlier plans to retire coal capacity. In northern Indiana, for example, local plans for a coal plant known as Schahfer Generating Station had shifted toward closure as solar was added to farmland, until a Trump administration emergency order arrived in December.

The AP report says Schahfer’s operator had previously expected to cut coal from 73% of its energy production to zero as it pursued renewables, with the plant set to be shut down. As that retirement date approached, the surrounding community changed as solar panels were built on hundreds of acres of farmland, a development that some residents regretted and others welcomed for cleaner energy and new tax revenue.

Then the administration issued an emergency order to keep Schahfer operational, according to AP. Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters in February that policies centered on climate change interfere with “reasonable energy development” and “mess up the math,” while Wright and other officials said the emergency orders helped prevent a major blackout during severe winter storms in January.

The AP report also describes how grid decisions and new demand are feeding each other locally: it says Amazon has proposed a multibillion-dollar data center complex near the plant powered by gas generators that would produce more than twice the power of the former coal facility, and that the utility said it reached an agreement with Amazon that would protect customers.

Opponents say those decisions come with costs for consumers and health. AP reports that keeping one Michigan coal plant open for about seven months cost $135 million, and that it is part of a broader effort that could leave about 34 gigawatts of coal online that had been scheduled to retire before 2029, stalling what utilities and environmental advocates described as a decades-long decline in coal-related pollution. The AP report says coal plants scheduled to retire under Trump emitted more than 130 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, along with tens of thousands of tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Environmental researchers and other critics argue the public health stakes are significant. AP cites George Mason University environmental engineer Lucas Henneman, who led a government study of deaths from coal pollution, warning that retiring coal plants could avoid “2,000 deaths per year,” while keeping them burning coal would continue those health impacts.

The legal and political debate is also widening beyond individual sites. AP says the administration has broad discretion in deciding whether an emergency exists and can “order almost any change in operation of the electricity system,” citing the Congressional Research Service. It adds that five Democratic-led states—Washington, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan and Colorado—have challenged the orders, and it quotes Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser as saying the orders burden consumers with higher prices and obstruct sustainable energy.

Burgum, who as Interior secretary oversees the administration’s approach to coal plant operations, told AP that the goal is “100% stay open, no more retirements, no more shutting down.” Meanwhile, AP reports that a representative of the energy-policy analysis firm Enverus said spending on upgrades—along with coal’s reliability—makes it unlikely that plants will retire until at least 2030, as the administration weighs additional funding for life extensions across the fleet.