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By Canary Media
See more from * Canary Media’s “Chart of the Week” column.
It was shocking back in May 2025 when the Trump administration took the unprecedented step of forcing an old coal plant to keep running, mere days before the facility was slated to retire.
And then the orders just kept coming.
So far, the Trump administration has leveraged federal emergency powers to force seven old fossil-fueled power plants — all but one of them coal-fired — to stay online, claiming that they are crucial to maintaining grid reliability. The thing is, state regulators, utilities, and grid operators had already deemed those polluting facilities unnecessary and spent years planning for their retirement. Some plants are even broken or have sat idle because the grid doesn’t actually need their pricey power.
Coal is a really expensive source of energy, and everyday Americans will likely be the ones to foot the bill for President Donald Trump’s crusade to prop up the faltering industry. The total cost of the administration’s stay-open orders sits at roughly $430 million as of Aug. 6, according to a running tally from the Sierra Club.
Even so, it seems likely that the DOE will keep blocking coal plants from shuttering. That could have huge impacts: More than 20 coal-burning units are supposed to close between now and the end of Trump’s term. Federal data show the next batch is slated to retire this December, at Colorado’s Comanche plant and at Minnesota’s Sherburne County station, whose owner is building one of the nation’s largest solar farms nearby to replace the dirty power.
Here’s what you need to know about the plants forced to stay open so far.
J.H. Campbell in Michigan
This more than 60-year-old plant on the banks of Lake Michigan was the first to be hit with a stay-open order by Trump’s Department of Energy in May 2025, a week before the facility was slated to close.
Democratic state attorneys general from Michigan and the nearby states of Minnesota and Illinois, along with environmental groups, have filed legal challenges to try and block the J.H. Campbell order. Oral arguments took place before a federal appeals court in May 2026, and a ruling could occur as soon as August 2026.
Eddystone in Pennsylvania
The second stay-open order, also in May 2025, hit oil- and gas-fired units at Eddystone installed in the late 1960s. Plant owner Constellation Energy says the facility has operated infrequently since last year but has contributed to grid reliability, WEKU reported in July 2026.
Environmental groups have sued the DOE over its stay-open order. In Kentucky, a utility and the state’s Republican attorney general are taking federal energy regulators to court, arguing that customers in the state shouldn’t have to bear the cost of keeping Eddystone online.
R.M. Schahfer in Indiana
By the time the DOE ordered the roughly 50-year-old Schahfer plant to keep running, in December 2025, the facility was already half-broken. Filings from the plant’s owner, Northern Indiana Public Service Co., estimate that repairing the broken unit and continuing to operate the plant could cost more than $1 billion through 2027. The plant went offline for repairs in February 2026, and NIPSCO said in May that it likely wouldn’t run again until fall 2026. In other words, the plant could not help with grid reliability even if it were needed.
The Schahfer stay-open order was also a devastating turn for the neighbors of the plant who hoped to finally be free from the pollution it spews into the air. Environmental groups have filed a legal challenge to the DOE order, as have the Democratic state attorneys general of Minnesota and Illinois.
F.B. Culley in Indiana
CenterPoint Energy, the company that owns Culley Unit 2, has described it as its “smallest and most inefficient coal unit.” But that didn’t stop the Trump administration from ordering it to stay open in December 2025. In February, the company specifically asked the Trump administration not to renew its stay-open order for the plant, describing it as unreliable and unnecessary for grid reliability. The DOE reupped the order anyway.
Environmental groups have filed a legal challenge to the DOE order, as have the Democratic state attorneys general of Minnesota and Illinois.
Centralia in Washington state
The more than 50-year-old plant owned by TransAlta was slated for a retrofit that would turn it into a gas-burning facility before Trump’s stay-open order in December 2025. Although TransAlta says it’s still committed to that plan, it’s also seeking tens of millions of dollars in reimbursement for costs incurred to keep the coal plant online — a move that’s frustrating utilities in the region since the plant has sat idle in the months since the DOE’s order. Electric customers might be on the hook regardless.
Washington state’s Democratic attorney general and environmental groups have legally challenged the DOE’s Centralia orders. Washington’s Democratic governor also signed legislation that would impose hefty costs on TransAlta if Centralia began running again.
Craig in Colorado
Utilities in Colorado had been planning for about a decade to retire Craig Unit 1 at the end of 2025, but the Trump administration forced it to remain online. In February 2026, two cooperative utilities that co-own the plant filed a petition asking the DOE to reconsider its stay-open order, arguing that it will force their members to bear unnecessary costs. The agency has not relented.
Already, the plant’s owners have had to take on the costs of repairing a faulty valve that sent the plant offline in December 2025, and some estimates project that running the plant for a year beyond its retirement date could cost up to $150 million.
Environmental groups and Colorado’s Democratic attorney general have filed legal challenges to the DOE order.
Stanton in Florida
Unit 1 at the Stanton coal plant got its stay-open order in June 2026. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates that propping up the nearly 40-year-old facility could add an average of $21 to monthly electric bills if the costs are solely assigned to customers of the Orlando Utilities Commission, the municipal utility that owns the plant.
Are we missing any of the latest details on Trump’s coal stay-open orders? Let me know at [email protected].
Canary Media’s “ Chart of the Week” series is supported by
Ysabelle Kempe
is associate editor at Canary Media.
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